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HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



TWENTY YEARS 



OF 



SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH 




CAMBRIDGE 

publtsbeb bi^ tbe 'ITlniverstt^ 

1896 









CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Introductory Notk . . . . . . . .5 

An Answer to the Cry for More English B^j A. S. Sill 6 

The Harvard Admission Examination in English 

By L. B. B. Briggs 17 

The Correction of Bad English as a Requirement for 

Admission to Harvard College Bi/ L. B. R. Briggs 33 

The Preparatory Work in English as Seen by a Harvard 

Examiner By B. S. Hurlbut 4.4. 

College Requirements in English . By B. S. Hurlbut 46 

Appendix .......... 55 



TWENTY YEAJaS 

OiF 

SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 



INTEODUCTORY NOTE. 

The papers iu this pamphlet are republished as a contribution to 
the discussion provoked by the reports which were presented in 1892 
and 1895 to the Board of Overseers of Harvard College by the 
Committee on Composition and Rhetoric. Each paper was written 
independently; the author of each was, at the time of writing, 
charged with the duty of reading the examination books in English 
produced by candidates for admission to Harvard College. The first 
paper, copies of which were sent by the College authorities to the 
■masters of over two hundred and twenty schools, was published only 
five years after an examination in English composition was for the 
first time prescribed for admission ; the last, after examinations in that 
subject had been going on for nearly twenty years. Taken together, 
the five papers show a remarkable agreement both in facts and in 
inferences ; and both facts and inferences tend to sustain the general 
conclusion reached on independent grounds by the Committee of the 
Board of Overseers — the conclusion that the Secondary Schools 
need to pay more attention to English. 

The first paper was originally published in " G-ood Company" 
(Springfield, Mass.), Vol. iv, No. 3, 1879; the second, in "The 
Academy" (Syracuse, N. Y.), September, 1888; the third, in 
" The Academy," September, 1890 ; the fourth, in "The Academy," 
October, 1891; the fifth, in "The Academy," June, 1892. The 
articles from "The Academy" are reprinted with the kind permission 
of Mr. Bacon, the editor of the magazine. 

The Appendix traces the history of the entrance requirement in 
English and shows what instruction in English was offered by the 
College for the year following the first entrance examination in 
that subject (1874-75), for the year following the publication of the 
first paper in this pamphlet (1879-80), and for the year 1896-97. 

A. S. H. 
L. B. R. B. 

B. S. H. 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 



AN ANSWER TO THE CRY FOR MORE ENGLISH. 
By Adams Sherman Hill, Harvard University. 

We can all remember a time when our schools and colleges gave 
even less instruction in the art of writing and speaking the English 
language correctly than is given at present, and that too without 
much complaint from any quarter. Children who learned their A B C's 
under the old system could call the letters in a word by name, 
1)ut were often unable to pronounce the same word, or to understand 
its meaning. Boys and girls who were well on in their teens could talk 
glibly about " parts of speech," " analyze" sentences, and "parse" 
difficult lines in Young's "Night Thoughts" or Pope's "Essay On 
Man," but could not explain the sentences they took to pieces, or 
write grammatical sentences of their own. Those of us who have 
been doomed to read manuscript written in an examination room — 
whether at a grammar school, a high school, or a college — have 
found the work of even good scholars disfigured by bad spelling, 
confusing punctuation, ungrammatical, obscure, ambiguous, or 
inelegant expressions. Every one who has had much to do with the 
graduating classes of our best colleges, has known men who could 
not write a letter describing their own Commencement without mak- 
ing blunders which would disgrace a boy twelve years old. 

Common as such shames were, they went on, not indeed without 
protest, but without criticism loud enough to disturb those through 
whom reform, if reform was to be, must come. The overburdened 
and underpaid teacher had every inducement to cling to the pre- 
scribed routine ; the superintendent of schools was too busy to listen, 
too busy Avith the machinery of " the marking system," with his pet 
theory of education, with the problem how to crowd a new study into 
"the curriculum," or how to secure his own re-election; the pro- 
fessor, absorbed in a specialty, contented himself with reqjLiiring at 
recitations and examinations knowledge of the subject-matter, how- 
ever ill-digested and ill-expressed ; journals of the better class affirmed 
that, though such a book was not written well, it was written well 
enough for its purpose, and sneered at those who took pains to 
correct gross errors in others, or to avoid them themselves ; and even 
some acknowledged masters of English held, with Dogberry, that 
" to write and read comes by nature." 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 7 

AYithiii a short time, people have partially opened their eyes to the 
defects of a system which crams without training, which spends its 
strength on the pett}'' or the useless, and neglects that without which 
knowledge is but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. Voices 
have been raised which command attention. At least one school- 
committee and one board of super^^sors have moved in the right 
direction. At lea.st one college has increased its force of instructors 
and its number of courses in English, and has done what it could to 
stimulate the schools ; and one president of a university has gone so 
far as to say, in an oft-quoted sentence : "I may as well abruptly 
avow, as the result of my reading and observation in the matter of 
education, that I recognize but one mental acquisition as an essential 
part of the education of a lady or a gentleman, — namely, an accurate 
and refined use of the mother tongue." 

We should, however, not blind ourselves to the fact that the 
reform has only begun. "What a recent article in "The Saturday 
Review " says of England is at least equally true of America : "A 
large proportion of our fellow-creatures labour under the hallucination 
that they could write as well as Macaulay, Thackeray, or Dickens, 
if they chose to take the trouble." They are like the man who told 
Charles Lamb that he " could write like Shakspere if he only had a 
mind to." "All he wants, you see," said Lamb, " is the mind." 

The scepticism on this point which used to pervade the high places 
of education still lingers on the low ground, and must be dispelled 
before a healthy state of feeling can exist. So long as people think 
literary skill easy of acquisition, they will be unwilling to have their 
children spend time in acquiring ' ' an accurate and refined use of the 
mother tongue." If the movement in favor of those things which 
make for good English is to be of much practical utility, it must spread 
widely and penetrate deeply; every school-committee must insist 
that, whatever else is done or is left undone, a serious effort shall be 
made to teach boys and girls to use their native tongue correctly and 
intelligently ; all our colleges must put English upon a par, at least, 
with Latin and G-reek, and must provide their students with ample 
opportunities for practice in writing and speaking the language they 
will have to use all their lives. If the schools and the colleges do 
this work thoroughly, a short time will suffice to bring parents to 
a sense of the paramount importance to every one of knowing how 
to read and write, and to show them how much labor that knowledge 
costs. 

The better to understand what has yet to be done in order to 
secure the desired end, let \is first see what is now done in the 



8 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AXD COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

schools, as tested by the exanihiation in Enghsh which all applicants 
for admissiou to Harvard must pass, and what is now done at 
Harvard. 

In 1874, for the first time, every applicant for admission to 
Harvard was required to present English composition. The require- 
ment * was as follows : 

English Composition. Each candidate will be required to write a 
short English composition, correct in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and 
expression, the subject to be taken from sxich standard authors as shall be 
amiounced from time to time. The subject for 1874 will be taken from 
one of the following works : Shakespeare's Tempest, Julius Caesar, and 
Merchant of Venice ; Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield ; Scott's Ivanhoe and 
Lay of the Last Minstrel. 

It was hoped that this requirement would effect several desirable 
objects, — that the student, by becoming familiar with a few works 
holding a high place in English literature, would acquire a taste for 
good reading, and would insensibly adopt better methods of thought 
and better forms of expression ; that teachers would be led to seek 
subjects for composition in the books named, subjects far preferable 
to the vague generalities too often selected, and that they would pay 
closer attention to errors in elementary matters ; that, in short, this 
recognition by the College of the importance of English would lead 
both teachers and pupils to give more time to the mother tongue, 
and to employ the time thus given to better advantage. 

Naturally enough, these ends were not reached at once. Some of 
the schools did not, at first, take the requirement in a serious light ; 
others failed to comprehend its scope ; others still deemed it a high 
crime and misdemeanor to take an hour for English from Latin, 
G-reek, or mathematics. In applying the requirement, moreover, the 
examiners gave it a liberal construction — as was proper while it 
was new — and the Faculty of the College, posted on the heights of 
the classics and mathematics, descended with difficulty to petty ques- 
tions of spelling, punctuation, and grammar. This laxity of con- 
struction, coupled with the belief that a good writer had no advantage 
over a poor one in the studies of the Freshman year, and but a slight 
advantage in the subsequent years of the course, confirmed the 
schools in their disposition to slight the new requirement. 

"Within the last two years there has been a marked change for 
the better. More work is done in the schools ; greater proficiency 

* "Requisition" in the article as originaUy published, that being the word 
then used in the University Catalogue. " Requirement " is the proper word. 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 9 

is demanded from the candidate for admission ; the Faculty frankly 
accept the requirement in English as standing upon a par with the 
other requu'ements ; and many of the college instructors take account 
of a student's ability or inability to express his ideas with precision 
and clearness. 

As yet, however, the amount of improvement in the schools is 
slight, as is shown by the results of the examination for admission 
to Harvard last June. For that examination the requirement was as 
follows : — 

English Gomjjosition. Each candidate will be required to write a 
short English composition, correct in sj)elling, punctuation, grammar, 
division by jsaragrajDhs, and expression, upon a subject announced at the 
time of examination. In 1879, the subject will be drawn from one of the 
following works : — 

Shakspere's Macbeth, Richard II., and Midsummer Night's Dream; 
Scott's Guy Mannering ; Byron's Prisoner of Chillon ; Thackeray's Henry 
Esmond ; Macaulay's Essay on Addison ; the Sir Roger de Coverley 
Essays in the Spectator. 

Every candidate is expected to be familiar with all the books in this list. 

The time allotted for the examination in this subject was an hour, 
and the paper set was as follows : — 

ENGLISH COMPOSITION. 

Write a short composition upon one of the subjects given below. 

Before beginning to write, consider what you have to say on the subject 
selected, and arrange your thoughts in logical order. 

Aim at quality rather than quantity of work. 

Carefully revise your composition, correcting all errors in punctuation, 
spelhng, grammar, division by paragraphs, and expression, and making each 
sentence as clear and forcible as possible. If time permits, make a clean copy 
of the revised work. 

I. The Character of Sir Richard Steele. 

11. The Duke of Marlborough as j)ortrayed by Thackeray. 

HI. The Style of "Henry Esmond." 

IV. Thackeray's account of the Pretender's visit to England. 

V. Duelling in the Age of Queen Anne. 

The whole number of persons who presented themselves for 
examination in this paper was 316 — including those applying for 
immediate admission and those taking the first, or " preliminary," 
half of the examination, the rest to be taken in some subsequent year. 
Of this number 157, almost exactly one half, failed to pass, the per- 
centage of failure being but slightly larger among the applicants for 
a "preliminary certificate" than among the candidates for admission. 



10 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

The causes of failure were diverse. Some of the unsuccessful, 
an eighth or a tenth of them perhaps, avowed or displayed utter 
ignorance of the subject-matter : several, for example, confounded 
Steele with Sir Roger de Coverley, others the period of Queen Anne 
with that of Richard Coeur de Lion, others the style of ' ' Henry 
Esmond," the novel, with the manners of Henry Esmond, the hero 
of the novel. Some — a smaller number, however, than in previous 
years — showed such utter ignorance of punctuation as to put 
commas at the end of complete sentences, or between words that no 
rational being would separate from one another ; and a few began 
sentences with small letters, or began every long word with a capital 
letter. Many, a larger number than usual, spelled as if starting a 
spelling reform, each for himself. Of these vagaries specimens are 
subjoined, including vain attempts to reproduce proper names that 
were printed on the examination paper itself : — duetts, jelosie, cheif, 
ojpposit, suprising, Cottossus, compaired, repetedly, fourth (for forth) , 
to (for too) , thrown (for throne) , fide, white-winged angle, lyeaverage, 
break, carrige, champaign (for champagne), insted, haled (for 
hailed) , endevors, sitcess, preasant and preasance, widly, looting, 
differance, superceeded, prepaired, comand, conspiritors, to finnish, 
avaritious, undouhiihly , granfather, peice, fashionable hell, writen 
and writtings, maniger (for manager) , untill, jovility (for joviality) , 
ficticious, couard and couardise (for coward), exhisted, origen and 
origonal (for origin and original), kneeded (for needed), genious, 
marrid, mad (for made), iver (for were), cleaverly, differcidty, 
existance, abscent, lolier, rep>are, ennoubling, agrieved, of (fov oft), 
susceptable, proclamed, loose (for lose), principle (for principal), 
lead (for led), Ripj Van Bincle, Adison and Adderson, Queene Ann, 
Macauley, Thackery, Steel (Sir Richard), Henery, Harries (for 
Harry's) . Of these mistakes some are evidently much graver than 
others ; but some of the worst were found in several books, and not 
a few are apparently due to an unconscious effort to represent to the 
eye a vicious pronunciation. Many books were deformed by grossly 
ungrammatical or profoundly obscure sentences, and some by 
absolute illiteracy. 

To bring himself below the line between failure and success, a 
writer had to commit several serious faults ; and even if he did 
"commit such faults, he was allowed to pass if he offset them by 
tolerably good work in the rest of his book. Even apparent igno- 
rance of the nature of a paragraph, or of the principle of sequence in 
thought or in language, did not of itself form an insurmountable 
obstacle to success. The books of many who managed to get above 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 11 

the line were, as regards all but the A B C of composition, clisereclit- 
able to the teachers whose instruction they represented. If the 
examiner erred, it was in giving the candidate the benefit of too 
many doubts, in tempering justice with too much mercy. He meant 
to make the requirement more serious than in previous years, but he 
did not mean to demand as n^uch as might reasonably be expected 
from boys between sixteen and twenty years of age. 

The great majority of the compositions this year, as in previous 
years, were characterized by general defects, which, though not 
taken into account by the examiner, point to grave imperfections in 
the method (or want of method) of the preparatory schools. The 
suggestions at the head of the paper were often disregarded in the 
letter, and almost always in the spirit. The candidate, instead of 
considering what he had to say and arranging his thoughts before 
beginning to write, either wrote without thinking about the matter at 
all, or thought to no purpose. Instead of aiming at good work, and 
to that end subjecting his composition to careful revision, he either 
did not undertake to revise it at all, or did not know how to correct 
his errors. Evidently, he had never been taught the value of 
previous thought or of subsequent criticism. 

To the rule there were, of course, exceptions. A few boys showed 
the results of excellent training ; l^ut out of the whole number only 
fourteen received a mark high enough to entitle them to the distinc- 
tion of passing " with credit." 

On the whole, the examination makes a poor showing for the 
schools that furnish the material whereof the university which pro- 
fesses to set up the highest standard in America, has to make 
educated men. If she does not succeed in giving to all her graduates 
the one mental acquisition deemed by her president the essential 
part of education, the fault is not altogether or mainly hers. For 
her to teach bearded men the rudiments of their native tongue would 
be almost as absurd as to teach them the alphabet or the multiplication 
table. Those who call for "more English " in the colleges should cry 
aloud and spare not till more and better English is taught in the schools. 

In the schools the reform should start. From the beginning to 
the end of the pre-collegiate course, the one thing that should never 
l)e lost sight of is the mother tongue, the language which the boy 
uses all the time as a boy, and will use as. a man. Till he knows 
liow to write a simple English sentence, he should not be allowed to 
open a Latin grammar. Till he can speak and write his own lan- 
guage with tolerable correctness, he should not be set down before 
the words of another language. Whatever knowledge he acquires, 



12 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

he should be able to put into clear and intelligible English. Every 
new word he adds to his vocabulary, he should know in the spelling 
and with the meaning accepted by the rest of the world. Every stop 
he inserts in a sentence should serve a definite purpose. 

The work begun in the primary school should be carried on by the 
grammar school, the high school, the private tutor. No translation 
from a foreign language, whether oral or written, no examination 
book, no recitation, should be deemed creditable unless made in good 
English. Gradually a boy should be led from the construction of a 
well-formed sentence to that of a well-formed paragraph, and from 
paragraph to essay. Gradiially he should be led from the skilful use 
of materials for composition provided by others to the discovery and 
arrangement of materials for himself, from the practice of clothing 
another's thoughts in his own language to the presentation of his 
own thoughts or fancies in appropriate language, — care being taken, 
of course, to provide, at each stage in his education, subjects suited 
to his powers and attractive to his tastes. 

The teacher of English should be equally quick to detect faults and 
to recognize merits of every description, and should know how to 
stimulate his pupils' minds till they are as fresh and alert at the desk 
as on the playground. He should possess special qualifications, for his 
task is at once diflScult and important. The best talent in each school 
— it is not too much to say — cannot be better employed than in 
teaching the use of the great instrument of communication between 
man and man, between books and men, the possession without which 
learning is mere pedantry, and thought an aimless amusement. 

When schools of all grades are provided with instructors in English 
who are neither above nor below their business, it will be possible to 
make the requirement in this subject for admission to college decidedly 
higher than it is at present, and the work after admission correspond- 
ingly better. When the schools shall be ready to teach the laws of 
good use in language and the elementary principles of rhetoric, a 
great point will be gained. 

The next best step would be to give to English two hours or more 
a week during the Freshman year. Could the study be taken up at 
the threshold of college life, the schools would be made to feel that 
their labors in this direction were going to tell upon a pupil's stand- 
ing in college as well as upon his admission. Unfortunately, however, 
it has not been found possible to make room in the Freshman year 
for English, no one of the departments which now occupy the year 
being willing to give up any of its time, and each supporting the 
others in opposition to change. 



TWEXTr YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 13 

While things remain as they are, the only way in which progress 
can be made is by a disposition on the part of those who instruct 
Freshmen in other studies to insist upon the use of good English 
whenever, in oral or written work, any English is used ; and this to 
a certain extent is done, some of those who are most unwilling to 
surrender a half hour of their own time to the instructor in English 
taking most pains to require good language from their pupils : but 
they have too many other things in hand to do this thoroughlj^ and 
there are obvious obstacles in the way of their achieving results that 
could easily be reached Avith younger boys in smaller classes. 

At Harvard, then, a student receives no direct instruction in 
English till his Sophomore year. During that year two hours a week 
are given to the study of rhetoric. A text-book is used which aims 
at familiarizing the pupil with the principles that underlie all good 
composition, as deduced from the best authors and illustrated by 
examples or warnings from recent works ; exercises are written and 
criticised ; and writers noted for clearness, like Macaulay, or for 
strength of statement and logical coherence, like Burke or Webster, 
are studied to the extent that time permits. Every Sophomore, 
moreover, writes six themes on assigned subjects, which are corrected 
and criticised by the instructor, and are rewritten by the student to 
the end that he may seize the spirit as well as the letter of the sug- 
gestions he has received. The books studied ought to tell on the 
themes, and they do so tell with faithful students who assimilate 
what they learn. 

Juniors are required to write six themes and four forensics. The 
themes are in the hands of three instructors. One has the A division, 
which is composed of the best writers in the class, and is small 
enough to enable the teacher to read each theme either with its 
author or aloud to a section of the division, and thus to make the 
criticism more searching and the revision more thorough than is 
possible under any system of notes on the margin. The B and C 
divisions, comprising the rest of the class, are so large that their 
themes for the most part have to be treated like those of the Sopho- 
mores. 

The forensics, which, in theory at least, are execises in argumen- 
tative composition, are read and weighed, but not criticised. For 
them candidates for Honors are allowed to substitute theses in their 
several departments, that is, writings which call for learning rather 
than for argumentative power. 

Seniors have to write four forensics, which are criticised from a 
rhetorical as well as from a logical point of view. For them, as for 



14 TWENTY YEARS OF SCPIOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

the Junior forensics, theses may iu certain cases be substituted ; and 
for two of them a Commencement Part is accepted as an equivalent. 

Commencement Parts themselves (with the exception of one or two 
written in Latin) may be regarded as exercises in English composi- 
tion. Early in November, the professor of rhetoric meets those 
whose rank at the end of the Junior year renders it probable that they 
will receive degrees "with distinction" at the end of the course. 
He tries to impress them with the importance of the academic festi- 
val in which they are to take part, and with their duty to do their 
best, both for their own credit and for that of the University. Each 
is left to choose his own topic, subject to the approval of a com- 
mittee of professors representing all departments of the University, 
and to treat the topic chosen in the way that best suits his powers. 
The Parts must be written by the first of May. The best of them 
are read by their authors to the committee, who select from the whole 
number the five or six best adapted to the occasion, — subject, 
treatment, and delivery, being all taken into account. Every year 
the honor of speaking is more highly prized ; every year the com- 
petitors show better work and more thorough comprehension of the 
essentials of a successful essay ; every year the committee find more 
difficulty in deciding which among several productions to select — 
a difficulty which is likely to increase now that, in consequence of 
certain changes in the regulations concerning degrees, the number 
of .competitors is more than doubled, over fifty being entitled to 
write this year, as against twenty -three or twenty-four last year. The 
testimony of those who are in the habit of attending Harvard Com- 
mencements (that of Rev. Dr. Bellows, for instance, as expressed 
in his enthusiastic speech last June) supports the opinion that there 
is, from year to year, a gradual improvement, sufficient to indicate 
that the labors of those who have helped the cause of good English 
have not been thrown away, that the ambition of the young men has 
not been appealed to in vain, and that the newly- awakened interest of 
the community in its own language has penetrated the academic shades. 

In addition to the prescribed work in English, an advanced elective 
course was established two years ago. To this course none but 
Seniors or Juniors who have proved their ability as writers are 
admitted. Every member of the class is required to write a composi- 
tion once a fortnight, sometimes on a subject of his own, sometimes 
on an assigned siil)ject or on one of several assigned subjects. 
Occasionally the instructor calls for a written criticism of an author 
whose works he deems worthy of study, or for a critical estimate of 
the relative merits of two authors of the same o-eneral character. 



TWEXTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AXD COLEEGE EXGLISH. 15 

Three hours a week are spent in criticism of the tliemes in the 
presence of the class, criticism in wliich all take part and which now 
and then leads to animated discussion. Often the best themes 
present the most matter for comment ; and some of the best as well 
as some of the worst writers make great improvement in recasting 
their essays after they have been criticised. Two examinations 
occur in the course of the year, at which the class write upon sub- 
jects announced at the time, subjects drawn from books that have 
been read in preparation, or from current questions or familiar topics. 

Last year, a course in "Oral Discussion" was established. In 
order to give ample time for preparation, the class meets only once 
a fortnight ; in order to give ample time for debate, each session 
lasts for three consecutive hours. A question — political, historical, 
or literary — which presents a fair field for argument, and demands 
both reading and thought, is announced a fortnight before the time 
fixed for its discussion ; two members of the class are appointed to 
open the argument on each side, and one to close it, each of the 
opening speakers to have ten minutes and each of the closing ones 
fifteen minutes. Between the opening and the closing speeches 
nearly an hour is given to volunteers on either side, each being 
allowed five minutes only. The rem'aining hour is spent in comment 
by the instructor on the debate to which he has been listening, com- 
ment which extends to points of manner as well as of matter, to the 
way of putting things as much as to the things put, the general aim 
being to teach the young men how to make everything serve the main 
object — the object of convincing or persuading a hearer. Awkward 
attitudes, ungrammatical or obscure sentences, provincial or vulgar 
locutions, fanciful analogies, far-fetched illustrations, ingenious 
sophisms, pettifogging subtleties, ineffective arrangement — all come 
in for animadversion ; and corresponding merits for praise. The 
debate is judged as an exercise in spoken English as well as in 
reasoning ; and observation shows that, as might have been antic- 
ipated, a strong writer is usually a strong speaker also. 

These two are the only elective courses'which make the writing or the 
speaking of good English their principal aim ; and since the efficiency 
of each requires that the class should be limited in number and that 
preference should be given to the most competent writers or speakers, 
it is not unlikely that some who become conscious, at the end of 
their Junior year, of deficiencies in their powers of expression, are 
unable to avail themselves of these opportunities to supply their 
deficiencies, and that many more do not open their eyes to their 
needs till after they have left college. If, however, the demand for 



16 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

elective work in English should greatly exceed the supply, the 
College will doubtless pro^^.de new courses sufficient to meet the 
demand. In establishing a course in composition in 1877, and one 
in oral discussion in 1878, the Faculty anticipated, rather than 
gratified, the wishes of the students ; but both courses, as the event 
has proved, supply real wants. 

Though the courses described are the only ones which aim, first 
and foremost, at good English, there are others Tvhich exercise a 
marked influence in the same direction. Prominent among these are 
the courses conducted by Professor Child, one of the most accom- 
plished living English scholars, — those in philology making the 
student familiar with the sources of the existing language, and those 
in Shakspere, Bacon, Chaucer, Milton, and Dryden, bringing him 
into close contact with the greatest of our writers. There is also a 
course in the English literature of the last and the present century ; 
there are readings and lectures in English, and literary courses in 
other languages, none of which can fail, in one way or another, in a 
greater or a less degree, to cultivate a faithful student's powers of 
expression. A similar influence may be traced to the courses in the 
fine arts, in mental and moral philosophy, in histor^^, in political 
economy, and even to some of the scientific courses. Every 
instructor who himself speaks and writes good English, and who 
demands good English from his pupils, is of great service ; and the 
number of those who keep this object in view is steadily increasing. 

On the whole, it seems fair to conclude that Harvard College, if 
not doing as much for the English of her students as can reasonably 
be expected while the schools do so little, is yet doing more and 
more every year, and that the most serious shortcomings in this 
respect on the part of her recent graduates cannot justly be laid at 
her door. English composition is the only study that every student 
must pursue after the Freshman year, every other subject being now 
optional ; in the elective courses in writing and speaking English, 
the best men have ample opportunities for practice ; in other courses, 
the best infiuences are indirectly at work to cultivate the students' 
powers of expression ; instruction in elocution is given to all who 
desire it ; Commencement Parts and Bowdoin Prizes (for disserta- 
tions on stated subjects) offer rewards for excellence in writing, Lee 
and Boylston Prizes for excellence in reading aloud and in spealring ; 
and there is now no doubt that in all the governing bodies of the 
University the current of opinion sets strongly in favor of good 
English. 

November, 1879. 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 17 



THE HARVARD ADMISSION EXAMINATION IN 
ENGLISH. 

By L. B. R. Briggs, Harvard University. 

The Harvard admission examination in Englisli is widely dis- 
cussed and little understood. It is worth while, therefore, to show 
what this examination is and what sort of work the candidates do 
in it. 

Every candidate is expected to write oif-hand a respectable little 
theme, and to correct specimens of bad English. Subjects for com- 
position are drawn from a few English classics, which the association 
of New England colleges prescribes ; specimens of bad English are 
taken from the examination books of earlier years, from students' 
themes, from newspapers, and from contemporary literature. 

A scheme of examination must meet two tests : it must be rational 
on paper, and must be rationally administered. Whether the English 
examination at Harvard meets the first of these tests is still an open 
question. Substitutes for it and modifications of it are suggested on 
every hand. One teacher would try the candidate's knowledge of 
English by all his examination books, considered, whatever their 
subjects, as English Composition. This is an alluring plan, ideal in 
its excellence, and, alas, ideal in its impracticability. The books 
must be read under the lash : it is only by straining every nerve that 
the examiners can finish their work in time. If all the books of each 
candidate should be collected and should be examined as English 
Composition by some competent person, the delay would be unbear- 
able. Moreover, such an examination would not touch English Lit- 
erature ; and in this " practical" age it is well to teach a boy that 
classics exist. The proposal to substitute for the present test an 
examination in English History, and to mark each book twice, once 
for History and once for English, is open to like objections : it would 
double the time needed for handling the books, and it would require 
no knowledge of literature. It would introduce, besides, the danger 
of fixing a boy's study of composition on what is known as " the 
historical style," which is often conventional and unlovely. Some 
teachers would prescribe Mr. Stopford Brooke's Primer of English 
Literature; but this plan, too, is objectionable. It would force the 
candidate to study not literature, but facts (and opinions) about 
literature — names of authors whose works he had never seen : 



18 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

dates, which, without a first-liand acquaintance witli tlie books they 
represent, stare Ibhxnkly at the mind, and at wliich tlie mind too often 
stares blankly in return. Other teachers would do away with the 
correction of bad English, and would fasten a boy's attention on 
good English only : yet up to this time no one has devised a better 
half-hour's test of acuteness and accuracy than the Bad English 
paper ; and until the English of Freshmen becomes less slovenly 
than it now is — or until accuracy becomes a lost art — some test is 
essential. Others still, would have no English requirement. They 
would suffer boys to come to college without a sense of literary form, 
and to ' ' dump " their knowledge promiscuously into their examina- 
tion books. I am no admirer of the present requirement ; I live in 
hope of something better : but I am as yet unable to see in any of 
the proposed substitutes a scheme at once superior and practicable. 
Besides, the present plan has passed, for a time at least, beyond the 
control of Harvard examiners and of Harvard University ; it must 
stand for several j-ears more whether we like it or not. 

The second test that an examination is bound to meet is the test 
of rational administration : it is not enough that the scheme of 
requirements is defensible ; the examiner must ask none but reason- 
able questions, and must mark the answers by a reasonable standard. 
Nobody who has inspected examination papers and the records of 
admission to colleges pretends that he can judge the severity of an 
examination by the printed scheme alone. Harvard College and 
other colleges print the same English requirement, but set different 
questions and mark hj different standards. Acquaintance with the 
method of marking is clearly necessary to the u^nderstanding of an 
examination. I have in mind two questions from the Greek admis- 
sion papers of minor colleges : one asked who Zeus was ; the other 
called for an account of the uses of the genitive case. Either may 
have demanded enormous intelligence in the candidate, and may 
have demanded none whatever ; neither, I must add, showed much 
in the examiner. 

In such discussion of the English examination as I have heard, 
nothing has impressed me more than the ignorance of teachers 
about the real nature of the test. The College is quite as responsible 
for this ignorance as the teachers are, since it has not done much to 
enlighten them ; but the teachers are responsible for irresponsibility, 
if for nothing more, when they publicly express such views as a 
thorough acquaintance with the subject would prove untenable. 

The candidate, as I have said, is required to write a short compo- 
sition on one of some half-dozen subjects from one or more of the 



TWE]N^TY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 19 

prescribed English classics. It is possible, no doubt, to pick out 
from a collection of Harvard admission papers a few subjects nnin- 
telligently chosen ; it is possible to pick out many that demand either 
a close acquaintance with the books from which they come or a touch 
of originality in the boy who treats them well : but it is, I believe, 
impossible to find a paper that does not offer at least one subject of 
which no conscientious boy can complain. If one or two subjects 
are hard, candidates (and teachers) should remember that among the 
three hundred applicants of a single year there are a few whom indi- 
viduality or literary instinct guides to the maturer subjects, and that 
these few may be worth a hundred of the others. Nevertheless the 
multitude has carried the day : the Commission of New England 
Colleges* has practically tabooed the more advanced subjects ; and 
the paper for last June — as printed below — contains nothing that is 
abstruse, and little that even in appearance is minutely exacting : — 

ENGLISH COMPOSITIOX. 1. 
Write a composition — with special attention to clearness of arrange- 
ment, accuracy of expression, and quality rather than quantity of matter 
— on one of the following subjects : — 

1. The Story of Viola. 

2. Viola's Errand to Olivia. 

3. How Malvolio was Tricked. 

4. Sir Andrew Aguecheek's Challenge and What Came of it. 

5. Mr. Darcy's Courtship. 

Whatever the subjects offered, it is safe to say that no candidate 
ever failed through ignorance of the details of a prescribed book. 
Doubtless many candidates have believed, and asserted, that they 
failed for this reason ; possibly their teachers have believed it, and 
have spread the report : but, as a matter of fact, the examiner's first 
question to himself is always, " Can the boy write English?" If he 
can, he may pass the examination, though, with Julius Caesar for his 
subject, he declares that Mark Antony loved Caesar less and Rome 
more. In June, 1887, two or three boys passed who acknowledged 
that they had never read the book from which the subjects were 
drawn, and who substituted subjects of their own choice from the 
other prescribed books. They would not have passed if their own 
English had not been good and their correction of bad English in- 
telligent. When a boy takes his own subject, it is right to demand 
a better theme of him than of others ; and since he may have come 
to the examination primed with a composition not his own, it is right 

* "The Commission of Colleges in New England on Admission Examinations." 



20 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AXD COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

to demand of liim unusual skill in the correction of bad English — 
the only work that is beyond question his. This year a candidate 
passed with a disgracefully ignorant little theme, called " The Story 
of Viola " but really a feeble fiction of his own. He knew almost 
nothing of Viola except that she wore boy's clothes. He was saved 
because his work with the " specimens" was good, and the English 
of his composition bearable. Besides, he needed clemency in order 
to be admitted to college, and a condition in English would have 
tui'ned the scale against him. Here is his theme : — 

"THE STORY OF VIOLA." 

"As it happened, Viola went out in a shij) in company with her brother. 
They had been gone some time and were far out at sea, when a storm 
arose and wrecked the ship. During the disaster Viola got separated 
from her brother, and each was obliged to look after himself. They 
succeeded in saving themselves, but each one thought that the other had 
been droAvn. 

"Some Avhile afterwards, Viola happened to wander to the town in 
which her brother at that time was staying. She saw him and recognized 
him, and so went and put on a boy's apparel and engaged herself into a 
family as a messenger boy to run on all errands that should come up. 
She kept her position for some time, continually making trouble for the 
people around her, and playing jokes on the lovers in the play. 

' ' Finally she gave up and told her brother of her identity, which 
he would not believe at first, but finally accepted her as his sister Avith 
great joy." 

I was ashamed to pass this theme, and am ashamed to print 
it as part of a successful examination ; but I wish to show that 
Harvard does not insist upon that minute and diversified literary 
knowledge which strains a boy's head and baffles a teacher's impart- 
ing skill. 

Leniently as the books are judged now, it might be well, as some 
one has suggested, to supplement the test of a theme written off-hand 
by that of one written at school and certified by the teacher as a fair 
specimen of the boy's work. The plan resembles that already 
adopted for the examination in Experimental Physics. The certified 
theme, if presented by a trustworthy teacher, might now and then 
offset in the examiner's judgment, the effect of nervous excitement 
or examination fright. So far Harvard might move toward the plan 
of admission by certificate, but no farther. 

The master of a famous preparatory school makes two complaints 
which deserve special consideration : first, that his worst pupils 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 21 

always pass in English ; and secondl}^, that his best pupils fail to 
get " credit" or " honors." Good and bad are lumped, he declares, 
so that he can rouse neither ambition nor fear. 

It is easy to see why his poorer scholars pass. He has boys 
of more than average intelligence ; he pays more attention to the 
English requirement than most teachers are as yet willing to do ; 
he uses good English himself, whereas many teachers do not ; and, 
above all, he gives admirable instruction in G-reek and Latin. Thus 
his pupils have peculiar advantages ; and even the weakest of them 
do as well at the English examination as better scholars from many 
other schools. 

Some masters push English Composition into a corner, and a dark 
corner at that ; others are guilty of sentences like "When tvill we 
be able to really commence work?" others, not so inaccurate, prefer 
oratorical or dressy English to the style of a straightforward 
gentleman, and vitiate a boy's writing with a vulgarity that it takes 
years to counteract ; others still — to borrow Professor Hill's 
expression — praise the English that is " free from all faults except 
that of having no merits ; " and many suffer their pupils to turn 
Greek and Latin into that lazy, mongrel dialect, "Translation 
English." 

The Greek and Latin requirements tell for so much more than 
the English requirements that a boy spends at least three school 
hours in producing hybrid translation to one in producing English. 
Consequently, at the English examination he writes, " One of the 
strangers having been informed of the youth's mission, set out to find 
the sought for uncle of the youth.'' I condition him, but with pity 
rather than blame ; for the teachers, too, are infected with the dis- 
ease of construing. When a boy writes " ?/ou ivas" or "a little 
loays," he may show the influence of an uneducated home — an 
influence that his teacher is perhaps powerless to offset. What gives 
a peculiarly melancholy aspect to " He having been informed, set out 
to find the sought for uncle " is the fact that no illiterate boy could 
produce it ; that it is the direct result of an educational process for 
which the teacher is beyond escape to blame. In a school where the 
teaching of Greek and Latin is, as it should be everywhere, the 
teaching of English also, no boy will have much trouble with the 
English requirements. 

The complaint that boys of marked capacity in English fail to get 
" credit," is a serious one, and I am unable to meet it satisfactorily. 
Before this year the requirement for credit was too high. This year 
the college lowered it slightly ; yet, even with an unusually easy 



22 . TWENTY YEAES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

paper in " Sentences," it was impossible to give "credit" to more 
than five books ; and not one of the five showed remarkable promise. 
I print one as a specimen : — 

"THE STORY OF VIOLA." 

"The stor}^ of 'The Twelfth Mght,' in which Viola aj^pears, opens 
with the landing of Viola, with her friend, the captain, upon the shores 
of Illyria. She is in quest of her brother, Sebastian, whom she has not 
seen since the time of the ship-wreck, a disaster which sej)erated [sic] 
them some time ago. She remembers having heard her father speak with 
the greatest admiration of the duke Orsino, who lives in a city near by, 
and determines to enter his service as his page. 

' ' Xow the duke is at this time violently in love Avith the Countess 
Olivia, a beautiful Avonian, who is ha mourning for her brother and has 
vowed that man shall never look upon her face again. Every advance of 
the duke is rejected; his entreaties are in vain. When he sees Viola, 
Orsino at once employs her, thiidiing her to be a man, and sends her to 
press his suit with the comatess. He sees that Viola is beautiful and 
thinks that she can more easily obtain an interview with Olivia. 

' ' He is right ; Viola not only gains access to the palace, but a private 
interview with the countess. She tells Olivia of the duke's insatiable 
love, but all her efforts come to naught ; again and again, she tries to 
soften Olivia's heart, but always with the same result. 

" Meanwhile, Olivia, also thinking Viola to be a man, has fallen in love 
with her, and Viola has grown to love the duke. These three are now 
entangled in a web from which time alone can extricate them. The duke 
is in love with the countess, the countess loves Viola, and Viola tells the 
duke that she will never love wife more than him. 

"At the palace of Olivia, lives her cousin. Sir Toby, whom Sir Andrew 
Aguecheek is visiting. Sir Andrew is wooing the countess and, seeing 
that she looks with favor upon Viola, sends Viola a challenge for a duel. 

"In the mean time Viola's brother, Sebastian, has arrived in the city. 
In walking about, he happens to enter the court-yard of of Olivia's palace. 
Sebastian looks exactly like his sister, and, when Sir Andrew sees him, he 
thinks it is Viola and attacks him. Being very skilled in the use of the 
sword, Sebastian easily overcomes Sir Andrew. 

" Olivia, now meeting Sebastian and taking him to be Viola, tells him 
of her love for him and proposes that they be married. Sebastian, not 
disliking the looks of the countess, accepts, and the knot is tied. 

" Viola noAV enters with the duke, and brother and sister meet for the 
first time since the ship-wreck. Everything is quickly explained, and 
Orsino, remembering Viola's professions of love, mairies her. 

' ' Thus happily ends ' The TAvelf th Night ' and the romantic experience 
of Viola." 



TWENTT YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 23 

This composition has none of a boy's freshness, no marked sign of 
literary taste, no peculiar \dgor. Besides, there are taints of transla- 
tion in it, such as " heing very sJcilled," and " tciking him to he Viola 
* * * proposes that they he married." Its English, however, is 
xisually accurate and unpretending; and the boy, tame as he is, 
shows undeniable skill in marshalling his facts. He has constructed 
a clear and well-proportioned summary, has done a solid hour's 
work, . and deserves praise. He makes some bad slips with the 
" specimens," but not many; and I give him the coveted " Good." 
Other boys show more cleverness and more imagination ; but their 
English is slipshod, or grandiose, or miscellaneously exuberant. 
They may be brilliant writers by and by ; but they lack those quali- 
ties "ndthout which no elementary work earns a high mark. 

In three cases of failure to get "credit" complaint has reached 
the examiners. In two of these cases Professor Hill re-read the 
compositions and found plague-spots of "Translation English." 
Complaint in the third case came to me, nearly two years after the 
examination. I had then seen the young man's work in his Freshman 
and Sophomore years. He was interested in literature, and his mind 
was strong and fertile. At his best he wrote admirably ; at other times 
he was diffuse and undisciplined — fond of tricks that seemed almost 
too vicious for his good sense to overcome or his vitality to struggle 
through. Nor was he even accurate. He wrote '•'• tiviglilight," for 
instance, with all dictionaries at his command and a fortnight for 
preparation. Such a young man might earn from sixty per cent to 
one hundred, according to his mood ; and nobody could foresee 
whether he would or would not deserve " honors" in English. 

It is almost inevitable that the extremes of marking should lie 
nearer together in the English examination than in any other. In 
mathematics and even in translation, total failure is possible ; but 
every boy who thinks himself ready for Plarvard College can produce 
a few English sentences, and correct some of the more glaring errors 
in the specimens of bad English. A book in mathematics may be 
perfect, and a book in translation accurate ; but no one knows what 
perfect English is, and scarcely any one keeps clear of conspicuous 
inaccuracy. Again: the "sentence paper," though easy to do 
something with, is hard to treat perfectly in the time allowed by the 
Faculty. These causes narrow the range of marking. 

I have tried to show what the English examination is ; it remains 
to consider some characteristics of the examination books. 

Spelling is bad, and probably always will be : loose for lose is so 
nearly universal that lose begins to look wrong ; sentance prevails ; 



24 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

dissapointed and facinating are not unusual ; sporadic cases are Sir 
Tohhy [Belch] , Sheassjjhere [of Stratford] , and welthey aeris * [Por- 
tia of Belmont] . Punctuation is frequently inaccurate — that is to 
say, unintelligent and misleading. The apostrophe is nearly as often 
a sign of the plural as of the possessive ; the semicolon, if used at 
all, is a spasmodic ornament rather than a help to the understanding ; 
and — worst of all — the comma does duty for the period, so that even 
interesting writers run sentence into sentence without the formality 
of full stop or of capital. To many candidates the principle that 
punctuation has no excuse for being, except so far as it guides the 
reader to the writer's meaning, seems never to have occurred. As 
for paragraphing, I am aware that it is a delicate art : yet that is no 
reason why some whole essays should be single paragraphs — solid, 
unindented blocks of conglomerate ; or why in others nearly every 
sentence should make a paragraph by itself, so that a page, except 
for its untidiness, might be taken from a primer. Here is a compo- 
sition of the former kind : — 

"Tiola, disguised as a boy, was sent by the Duke to see Olivia. Viola 
was sent with intention that she should tr}' and persuade Olivia to love the 
Duke. Viola, however, instead of gaining the love of Olivia for the Duke, 
gained it for herself. At last, even, Olivia wanted to marry Viola, but 
Viola being a girl was forced to refuse her. It happened that Viola's 
brother passed there soon after this. Olivia taking him for his sister 
asked him to marry her, wliich he, after he was over his surprise, did. 
Olivia the next time she met Viola, taking her for her brother, was quite 
indignant because she did not recognise her as her wife. Sliortly after 
this Viola's brother meeting Olivia and Viola together, is overjoyed to 
meet his sister, whom he thought dead. The Duke then also comes by 
and recognised Viola. After the Duke hears that Olivia is married he 
askes Viola to be his wife which she with great pleasure does. The Duke 
and Olivia therefore instead of becoming man and wife, become brother 
and sister.'' 

I give two specimens of the minced themes, one narrative and 
one ethical : — 

I. 

«' Mr Darcy was invited by Mr Bingley to make him a visit at his place. 

' ' It hapjDened that, early one morning, Elizabeth Bemiet had taken a 
walk, and on her way had visited the Bingleys. 

f " Here she met Mr Darcy, and at first sight took a dislike to him. 

• ' She took cold on account of her walk and was not able to go home for 
two days ; so her sister came and took care of her. 

* The reformed spelling of heiress. 

t There is some doubt whether the writer meant to begin a paragraph here. 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 25 

' ' The sister of Bingley wanted to marry Mr Darcy on account of liis 
money, although she could not consider herself poor. 

' ' It seems that Mr Darcj^ was struck at the first sight by the handsome 
face of Elizabeth and Mr Bingley also was not slow to acknowledge that 
he liked Jane, Elizabeth's sister, 

" Soon after the malady was cured, the sisters returned home. 

" In a few days Mr Bennet invited Mr Darcy and Bingly to a dinner. 

" Here also Mr Darcy showed a desire for Elizabeths company. 

" At this time there was quatred at Longbourn a regiment. 

" This was a very pleasing addition to the pleasures of the Bennet's, 
for there was always some entertainiment going on, in which they gener- 
ally took part. 

"A Mr Wickham made his appearance here in ordei to join the regiment. 

' ' He was very handsome, and could keep up a lively conversation so 
that he was liked by everyone, especially the Bennets. 

»* One day Mr Darcy with Mr Bingley were riding through Longbourn 
when they met the Bennets who were with Mr Wickham. As soon as 
Wickliam saw Darcy he turned colour and passed on. Elizabeth noticed 
this and related it to her sister and they two had a great amount of gossip 
over the event. 

' ' The next time Elizabeth met Wickham she enquired of him when he 
and Mr Darcy had met before. 

' ' He told her a story that threw a dark light on Mr Darcy and made 
himself out as a very wronged man. 

' ' This was believed by all who heard of it untill Wickham eloped with 
Lydia Bennet leaving great many debts behind him. 

"These Mr Darcy paid and fomid out Avhere the eloped couple Avere 
staying, and reported his find to Mr Bemaet's brother. 

' ' This transaction was f ovmd out by Elizabeth, who immediately had to 
admit to her sister that she liked Mr Darcy more than ever. 

" This soon grew into love which finaly resulted in her marraige." 



II. 
"MR. DARCY'S COURTSHIP." 

In the Courtship of Mr. Darcy we see one hand, much for lovers to 
copy after and desire, while on the other much that they should avoid. 
" A warning should be taken from tlie despicable maimer in Avhich Jane 
is treated by Darcy's sister. It is unfair to say the least. 
' ' Why should a respectable young man be prevented from courting a 
young lady even if she be not wealthy ? 

" The course of true love camiot be put to an end, no matter what is 
brought to bear ujjon it. 

' ' If every lover would have the patience and faith of Jane in a man, 
especially when outward circumstances are very, very dark, we should 
have less divorce cases to-day in the courts. 



26 TAVEXTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

*' While Darcy is 2)i'<?vented from seeing his object of love no one can be 
lead to think that he has no thought of her. 

' ' He appears to think of her all the time wishing to see her and to de- 
clare his love for her. Perhaps Darcy did not endeavor as much as he 
was able, to either find or Avrite Jane. 

' ' Some would censure him in this respect, but for my part, when a man 
is hindered from anj-thing and when he knows that if he does that thing, 
it will be contrary to the best Avishes of his own sister, I have not the 
courage to blame him. 

"A lover should be carefuU and not arose the passions of his or her 
love. 

' ' It is not to be wondered at that Darcy's conduct should seem strange 
to Jane. 

" This walking in the dark is not to be envied by any means. 

' ' In spite of trial and difficulties Jane and Darcy meet again and renew 
their love. 

' ' Soon Darcy's Courtship ceases for they are united in the haj)py bond 
of unity." 

The "lukewarm moral atmosphere" of the last essay suggests a 
serious fault of mau}^ examination books, the fancied necessity of 
infusing morality somewhere. The favored spot is usually the end ; 
and the moral peroration is so common that some teachers, as I fear, 
must encourage it. A few examples will do : — 

1. " Many peojile can write a pretty frivollous story, but few is the 
number, of those, who can put into that stor\' lessons that, if a reader 
learns them, he can follow all through life. This power has been given 
to Miss Austen." 

2. " On the day when these two [Darcy and Elizabeth] were united, 
two hearts, properly adapted to each other but of different birth Avere 
made one, not for a few years nor for life but forever." 

3. "Such is her [Viola's] stor}-, and beautifully has the great Shake- 
sjjeare told it. She leaA'es us all a wide field for thought and an almost 
perfect example of what true ananhood should be. Character into Avhich 
right principles have been implanted at its first forming is impressed in- 
delibly. So Viola, beautiful in character, righteous in deed, and pure in 
heart lived ever nobly and although her apj)earance Avas changed yet the 
heart Avas the same, 

' Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled ; 
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, 
But the scent of the roses Avill liang round it still.' " 

4. " Miss Austen evidently intends to show that even our most powerful 
feelings of dislike can be OA^ercome in time and that we should not judge 
that as Ave noAv feel we shall ahvays feel 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 27 

' ' Everything is liable to change, and we ourselves are not excluded, it 
is wisely ordained thus, for terrible would be the results were all first 
impressions permanent." 

The last passage recalls the schoolgirls' sentiments in Elsie Ven- 
ner — " that beauty is subject to the accidents of time," and the like. 
The rest of the same theme, however, is neither oratorical nor flat ; 
so that the work as a whole is far better than that of the following 
essay, where vicious morality and "fatal facility" blight every line : — 

"MR. DARCY'S COURTSHIP." 

' ' AVhat a strange paradox of character Darcy at first seems ? You 
hardly can account for it. It may seem unnatural when first you think 
of it. But think. Know you not manj^ of your friends whose actions 
seem to be inconsistent. Aye, look you at your own. Think how often you 
astonish yourself, as well as those who know you, by your various actions 
and then look at Darcy. 

" Pride and Prejudice — Darcy"s character alone would have given the 
first part of the title of the book. But what is pride ? Does it not con- 
tinually displaj" itself ? Does it not consist itself in display. How noticible 
then when it occurs. Surely pride in itself is no tremendous fault, but its 
disagreeableness lies in this very characteristic — display. 

" But you wonder hoAV this has anything to do with his courtship. Aye, 
in every way. Do you not remember his pride, the very first time you 
saw him there in the ball-room ? how he was above dancing ? Do jon 
not remember seeing Bingley go up to liiiu to beg of him to dance ? and 
can you not remember his reply, remarking that Elizabeth was only 
tolerable ? But that same Elizabeth in a few years is mistress of Pem- 
berley. Mark how he only watches the second Miss Bennet, but he is 
too proud to court openly. Also, by way of remark, I think I remember 
hearing him speak to Bingley about the Bennets' vulgar relatives. Even 
his love breaks not through his pride ; his Pride and Love go hand in 
hand, if Pride does not lead the way. But his love is safe, for that love's 
bitterest enemy, pride, is overthrown by Elizabeth's disdainful rejection. 
Covild you not almost foresee this ? Would any one have been a wonder- 
ful proj^het to have told that he was in love with Elizabeth, nay even that 
he would propose, (and why should he not for he, through his pride, 
was confident of acceptance ?) that Elizabeth would scornfully refuse, and 
that his pride would be broken ? What could more surely break one's 
pride than have a proposal, in assurance given, cast back in one's face, as 
Darcy's was ? 

"There was something that made me love Darcy from the beginning. 
It shone through his pride, through his arrogance, and made me feel that, 
behind that unpleasant outside, there was a true man. I know not what 
it was, but it made me feel that I wished I had that man's character with- 
out his pride. 



2S TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

" With Elizabeth's refusal his true courtship really begins. Before, he 
was courting his own pride ; now, he courts INIiss Elizabeth Bemiet. His 
love, no longer smothered under the Avet blanket of his pride burns 
unhindered ; and to have Darcy's unhindered love was to have a most 
precious, most priceless thing. It was not a mere passionate affection, 
that liA^ed merely for the pleasure of its existence. It was a love of tender 
regard, that lived solely for the being to whom it was directed and because 
of Avhom it came into existence. 

" Can it not be put this way ? Darcy had pride. Love crept in. That 
love grew and grew. That love startled his pride. It was too late for the 
love to be stifled, it could only be restrained. His pride was broken, and 
his love unrestrained filled his life. Pride can no more enter that heart of 
which true Love has full possession." 

None but a cynic can fail to sympathize with the writer of this 
theme for the agony that awaits him in Harvard College, the lashing 
that he must endure before he finds his true place in that hard- 
hearted little world. If there is one thing that Harvard College will 
not tolerate, it is "gush," — "gush" in general, and moral or 
oratorical "gush" in particular. I may whisper parenthetically 
that some young men have gushed unseen, or seen and uncou- 
demned, if they have chosen verse as the outlet of their feelings ; 
that the " Harvard mail," afraid of making a fool of liimself, would 
rather accept nonsense as poetry than set up himself for a critic of 
poetry : but in prose detection is certain at Harvard if anywhere. 
Illiteracy a student will pardon (it is the weakness of a man and a 
brother, and no drawback to touchdowns or home runs) ; even 
immorality he will often overlook : but the blatant moral oratory of 
a man that he thinks no better than himself cannot be lived down in 
a four years' course. All this is not as it should be ; but I am 
trying to state things as they are. 

As a rival of the moralist, there is tlae interpreter of character : — 

"VIOLAS ERRAND TO OLIVIA." 

"As there are a great many things which might be said concerning the 
errand of Viola we can only turn our attention to one of those thins. 

' ' The most impoi'taint thing connected with any action is usualy the 
result. This is what we Avill concider in the present essay. The result 
of the message Avas to arrouse in Oliva a most passionate feeling of love 
for Viola. One might criticize the suddenness of the act and condemn it 
as hasty and unad\"ised, but we must concider that Avhere a man has to 
think to descide Avhat he should do a woman feels, and when she feels she 
acts, and if she thinks at all it is after the thing is over. 



TWEIS'TY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 29 

' ' That this sudden love did not spring from any weekness of character 
may be seen from the persistancy Avith which she held the Dtike at baj-. 
If she had been Aveek, the power and pomp, the grandure of the name, 
together Avith the fine personal appearance of the Duke, and the flatter}' of 
the love of such a man AA^ould long ago have Avon her. But she Avas not 
Aveek. She Avas strong and being strong must love strongly Avhen she 
loved at all ; and Avho, Ave Avould ask, could love strongly and not shoAV it." 

One sentence, from a book written some years ago, combines the 
ethical and the analytic : — 

" That Ci-esar Avas ambitious there is not a doubt in my mind, Init that 
he ought to have been killed for his ambition there are a great many.'' 

Humorists (conscious humorists, I mean) are scarce ; but I have 
gathered a few specimens of their Avork : — 

1. He [Mr. Darcy] has come at last ! They have seen him ! What do 
they think of him ? They all Avithout an exception think him ' just too 
horrid,' but any one of them Avould be Avilling to take him if they could." 

2. " Sebastian consented ; the priest of the house Avas called ; the mar- 
riage ceremonies Avere performed. Sebastian stepped out to see some 
friends,* when Cfessario, Avith the Duke, stepped into the palace." 

3. " NoAV there Avere several families residing near Mr. Bingley's neAV 
home, and there Avere several mothers Avho Avere busily engaged husband 
hunting for their daughters. One family in particular had a full quota of 
fair ones who had not yet worn the orange blossom. So this Avas a 
dangerous region for tAvo young knights to ex^ilore if they expected to 
retire Avith unbroken hearts." 

4. "After Olivia's departure, she sent a ring claiming it to have been 
left, but though Olivia understood the action she did not Avish to have a 
Avoman make love to her (it Avas not leap-year). The Lord sent her again 
and this time the lady asked her to marry her then, as a priest Avas beloAV, 
but she left." 

Queer figuratiA^e and half-figuratiA'e mixtures are common : Viola 
" fills her position, flitting about like a ray of sunshine ; " Mr. Darcy 
' ' could not prcA^ent an attachment for the charming girl from spring- 
ing up in the seat of his affections, which by the way were not 
ahvays easily obserA'^ed ; " Mr. Darcy, " liaA'ing once broken through 
the ice, finds but little trouble in progressing in the paths of love." 
Again: " Loa'C was brooding between them [Mr. Darcy and Eliza- 
beth] but not as yet had the fire been burning, and as it seems, the 
match was lighted at this point." 

Mixed figures, however, are so often the produce of a fertile, 
though unweeded, mind that in a boy of seventeen they are almost 

* I am not sure that the humor is conscious here. 



30 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

eucouragiug. "We mourufully contemplate the fate of that great 
poet soul [Burns], a jewel of uatui-e, highly endowed, that perished 
in its bloom," — these words were the end of a good theme, and the 
work, I suspect, of a boy who proved the best writer in his class. 
Nor am I discouraged by such blunders as, "Mr. Darcy was per- 
fectly uonpulssed ; " nor by the occasional use of a degraded phrase, 
like ' ' don masculine habiliments " (of Viola) . I am discouraged by 
pervading inaccuracy, by incontinent oratory, and by chronic morality. 
More than all, I am discouraged by wooden unintelligence. 
Though the admission books in English are gradually improving, it 
is true now, as it was true some years ago, that "few are remarkably 
good, and few extraordinarily bad ; " that "a tedious mediocrity is 
everywhere." Dulness is the substance of scores of themes, and 
inaccurate dulness at that : there is neither a boy's sprightliness, 
nor a man's maturity, nor a scholar's refinement, nor yet a reporter's 
smartness. The average theme seems the work of a rather vulgar 
youth with his light gone out ; and this unillumined incompetency 
takes the place of characteristics in about three quarters of the 
books. To shoAV what I mean, I take the first theme of average 
mark that I can lay my hands on, a theme clearly above the passing 
line. The subject is " Mr. Darcy's Courtship." The boy does not 
dream that the story is full of life ; to him it is something to go 
through — like statistics. Accordingly he tabulates it, and appends 
a moral duller than his tables : — 

"MR. DARCY'S COURTSHIP." 

' ' Mr. Darcy, a young man of distinguished birth and great Avealth, with 
that peculiar pride in his character which j'oung men of wealth generally 
acquire from the adulation paid to them by ignorant jjeople, is surprised 
at and delighted with the independence aud frankness of spirit with which 
a certain jMiss Bemiett receives him. This Miss Bennett he first saw at an 
evening party given by the sisters of a friend of his. He afterwards saw 
her at the home of his friend where, contrasting the sharp, witty conduct 
of Miss Bennett towards him with the ignorant adulation of his friend's 
sisters, he falls in love with her. 

'• Miss Bennett is so influenced by the insinuations of a renegade ward 
of Darcy's father that she despises him. When, by chance, they meet at 
the country house of Darcy's aunt, Darcy proposes and is rejected by Miss 
Bennett who flaunts in his face the wrongs charged to him by his father's 
ward. Darcy is so incensed that he says nothing and leaves. After some 
consideration, he concludes to explain aAvay these falsehoods and does so 
to the entire satisfaction of Miss Bennett Avho now begins to see many 
noble traits in Darcy and, after a while, falls in love Avith him. 



TWENTY YEAES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 31 

' ' Darcy, after lie has done many favors for Miss Bennett's family, again 
proposes to Miss Bennett and is heartily accepted. Darcy, when asked by 
Miss Bennett why he fell in love with her, admits that it was principally 
on account of her humbling his spirit of pride and teaching him the pleas- 
ure of treating one's supposed inferiors well. 

" Darcy finally marries Miss Bennett to the great chagrin of his friend's 
sisters (the Bingleys) who make great protestations that the match is 
pleasing to them. 

" The moral of all this, I think, is that slavish flattery will never attract 
the attention either of those who may deserve our praise or of those who 
do not to any qualities, either of mind or body, Avhich we may posess. 
"While, on the other hand, frankness and independence of spirit will 
always obtain for us, even among the greatest of men due consideration 
and respect." 

In the treatment of the Bad English paper I see the same decrep- 
itude of the more active powers. The one notion that possesses a 
boy when he faces the sentences is that something must be changed. 
His mind saunters up to each sentence, looks at it vacantly, changes 
tlie first word that comes half-way to meet him, and moves languidly 
on. In Neither she nor Tony entertain any thoughts of marriage, he 
changes nor to or, and leaves the rest ; in If the tariff zvere taken off 
ofioool, toe toould be obliged to dose oar mills, he touches nothing but 
were, which he changes to was ; in It prevents him bending the elbow 
more than a little ivays, he corrects the second blunder with the gen- 
teel substitute, beyond a certain degree. Sometimes unintelligence 
goes farther yet. In Turning into the square, the post hit him causing 
him to shy, causing him to shy is emended to which made him very 
shy. The sentence, / think the style bad, and that he has a good deal 
of the old woman in his way of thinking, passes muster for its English 
but not for its etiquette. The bad construction is unchanged ; but 
a good deal of the old looynan in his loay becomes much of his mother's 
manner. One might think this change humorous ; but I am con- 
vinced that it is not. It is as unconscious as a sentence in an 
admission theme on The Merchant of Venice, — " Shylock departed 
with neither money nor flesh." 

It is a mistake to suppose that any practicable change in the 
English requirement would do away with the evils that appear in 
the books. Many of these e\als will remain so long as a single 
prominent teacher in a single large school suffers slipshod English 
to be used by his pupils or by himself. Preparation in English is a 
com]Dlex matter ; and the ' ' English teacher" is but one of a thousand 
influences that make or mar it every day. The difficulty lies deep, 
when every subject is taught in English, and when the English of 



32 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

SO many learned men is radically bad. As a general thing the 
school gets out of the teacher all that it paj^s for : and until schools 
can afford to pay trained and polished men ; to give those men such 
relief from routine and bread- winning as shall enable them to culti- 
vate themselves ; and to demand of them not the raw power of 
keeping fifty boys in order and hearing five recitations a day, but a 
spirit at once gentle and manly, and a culture that must reveal itself 
without pedantry in every recitation, whatever the subject — until 
this millennium arrives, we shall see in our English examination the 
results of weary or perfunctory or — worst of all — decorated teach- 
ing. Meantime we must thank the teachers of English for their 
up-hill work. 

September, 1888. 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AXD COLLEGE ENGLISH. 33 



THE CORRECTION OF BAD EN&LISH, AS A REQUIRE- 
MENT FOR ADMISSION TO HARVARD COLLEGE.* 

By L. B. R. Briggs, Harvard University. 

About eight years ago Harvard College began to require the cor- 
rection of bad English as a part of the examination for admission. 
Under the head of " Specimens of Bad English," some twenty sen- 
tences were set before the candidate, for the correction of such errors 
as he might discover. In 1886, the responsibililty of admitting 
candidates was transferred from the College Faculty to a committee 
of instructors representing all, or nearly all, the studies in which 
examination is offered ; and from then till now I have had charge of 
the examination in English. The papers for June, 1886, Professor 
Hill and I made together ; but for every paper since that time I 
alone am responsible. 

In these last three years I have made three innovations : — 

First, in answer to the well-grounded complaint of Professor Tufts, 
I have given the candidates more space in which to make their cor- 
rections. They are required, you know, to write on the examination 
paper itself, and should not be cramped by close printing and narrow 
margins. 

Secondly, in answer to the complaint of several teachers, I have 
shortened the paper a little, reducing the twenty sentences to twelve 
or fifteen. 

My third innovation sprang partly from my own convictions and 
partly from a recommendation by the Commission of New England 
Colleges. t In April, 1888, the Commission voted, — 

' ' To recommend to the several faculties that the bad Engiish sentences 
given for correction should not include sentences the meaning of Avhich is 
obscure." 

It is unreasonable to ask an excited boy, with a meagre allowance 
of time, to fashion a symmetrical organism out of a tangle of arms 
and legs. Yet that is what the College has occasionally done. The 
temptation to do it is stronger than would at first appear. The 

* A paper read before the Massachusetts Association of Classical and High 
School Teachers, April 4, 1890. 

f "The Commission of Colleges in New England on Admission Examina- 
tions." 



34 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

College likes to set before the boys, and their teachers, such errors 
as the boys themselves commit.* Among these errors is the habitual 
use of sentences that are all arms and legs, — without head, tail, or 
body ; aud by putting such sentences on the admission paper we call 
the attention of teachers sharply to the need of training boys in a 
knowledge of grammatical structure. Nevertheless I have tried to 
follow the recommendation of the Commission. Last June, indeed, 
my paper was so simple that I was, and am, ashamed of it.f 

I have sometimes thought of confining the paper to one or two 
sentences ; of selecting confused sentences, such as the boys them- 
selves write ; aud of demanding a careful statement of faults and an 
explanation for every correction. I have shrunk from this plan, 
however, and for three reasons : — 

First : The plan is not in the spirit of the votes of the Commission. 

Secondly : It implies better training than most schools can give. 

Thirdly : It demands time for thought. The College allows no 
time ; aud the candidate is incapable of thought. " Thinking," says 
Professor Hill, "is the last exercise in which college students 

* The "Specimens of Bad English" in the September paper are regularly- 
taken from the work of candidates in the preceding June. 

t ENGLISH COMPOSITION. 2. 

SPECIMENS OF BAD ENGLISH. 

Write your number on this paper. 

Correct on this paper all the errors you discover in the following sentences : — • 

1. A few years later he began his " Paradise Regained," but which he never 
finished. 

2. While sitting in my room just after lunch, the fire alarm sounded. 

3. The character of the agents, or persons, are next to be considered. 

4. So honorable a connection might have been expected to have advanced 
our author's prospects. 

5. Sometimes he would lay awake the whole night, trying but unable to 
make a single line. 

6. Milton was too busy to much miss his wife. 

7. Everybody had in their recollection the originals of the passages parodied. 

8. Dryden neither became Master of Arts or a fellow of the University. 

9. He consoles himself with the fancy that he had done a great work. 

10. I think we will fall considerably under tlie mark in computing the poet's 
income at £600. 

11. The Faculty from virtue of its position know thoroughly the needs of the 
students under them. 

12. She confessed to having struck her husband with the axe, and plead self- 
defence. 

Admission (1) 1SS9. 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 35 

employ their minds;" and if this is true of college students, how 
much more is it true of " Sub-Freshmen !" 

Complaints about the examination in the coi-rection of bad English 
are usually interwoven with complaints about the other part of the 
English examination. Some years ago I heard at a meeting of 
teachers, in the Boston Latin School, a surprising screed against the 
examination as a whole. For composition, I learned, we prescribe 
subjects that demand both maturity and a minute knowledge of many 
books ; for correction we prescribe a long array of sentences. By the 
words " Correct any errors you discover," we imply that some of the 
sentences may be right ; and, in the opinion of an experienced 
teacher, some of them are right. I learned also that we allow but 
one hour for the whole examination. 

By this time most teachers are better informed. They know that 
difficult subjects, though now and then offered to the candidate, are 
never forced on him ; that minute knowledge of the prescribed books 
is neither required nor expected ; and that the examination occupies 
an hour and a half, an hour being allotted to the composition alone. 

Through no fault of the English Department, but half an hour 
remains for the correction of bad English. The time is too short for 
a satisfactory test in anything. A boy's intelligence, when laden with 
fifteen* subjects, does not mind the helm so promptly that the instant 
it steers out of one examination it can get under way in another. 
Yet thorough success in a serious half-hour examination implies an 
almost instantaneous start. The "sentence paper" is a rough test, 
therefore; but, rough as it is, it is immensely valuable, for it marks 
off the trained boy from the untrained. 

The charge that we pester and fool our candidates by setting before 
them for correction sentences already correct, I cannot squarely meet 
until I have seen at least one accurate sentence that the College has 
labelled as a " Specimen of Bad English." I take my stand upon the 
platform of honest ignorance, since I never wittingly printed as bad 
English, English that was not bad. 

Yet, though false, the charge is weighty ; for it points straight to 
a stumbling-block in the preparation of candidates. Unless the 
preparatory teacher and the college teacher agree what to condemn, 
there is a hard outlook for the boys. 

What shall I print as " Specimens of Bad English?" It is idle to 
say, " Confine your choice to what every educated man knows to be 
bad." The obscure is prohibited ; the illiterate insults both boy and 

* [An exaggerated number. —L. B. R. B. (1896).] 



3n TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE EXGLISH. 

teacher, — not to mention the University : l)ut outside of tlie obscure 
and the illiterate there is nothing that every educated man knows to 
Ije Ijad. 

What is more vulgar than yoic tvas? — yet some teachers defend it ; 
more illegitimate than iY don't? — yet many teachers use it; more 
slipshod than / don't hnoio as? — yet most teachers never notice it ; 
more inexact than dangling participles? — yet good authors emplo}^ 
them ; more offensive to a trained eye or ear than to thoroughly 
appreciate, or to cordially thank? — yet of such phrases professors 
(even professors of English) are guilty again and again. 

"W'hat is a surer sign of second-rate diction than the confusion of 
shall and ivill? Yet a teacher, writing to ask me why his best pupil 
failed at the English examination, ignores the commonest truths about 
shall and will. In this very building,* in a discussion of preparation 
in English, I once heard a speech which showed plainly and repeat- 
edly that to the speaker the distinction between shall and tvill was 
outer darkness. Indeed, I have heard a college professor declare 
that the distinction is " all purism." 

The same professor, by the way, affirms that spelling is " all 
purism ;" and, to do him justice, he has the courage of his convictions. 
He, perhaps, can afford to neglect small distinctions ; for he is a 
stimulating teacher and a brilliant man : but his pupils, who are 
neither instructive nor illustrious, do not rise above the need of 
accuracy ; and those of his colleagues who teach English must spend 
time and labor in striving to counteract his influence. Nor does 
inaccuracy stop at professors : I know a college president who says 
ain't (unless he has mended his ways of late) , and another who says 
like I do. 

It is just such errors as I have named that college examination- 
papers should take pains to condemn ; for to just such errors half- 
educated young men are continually exposed. Some authority, I 
know, may be pleaded for what I have called errors ; otherwise it 
would be almost nugatory to ask the boys to correct them. The 
question always is, how much authority. We are prone to forget 
that English grammar is not immutable like the multiplication table ; 
and that training in English grammar is not training in knowledge, 
but the far higher training in judgment. Though Miss Austen lets 
participles dangle, though Browning wedges adverbs into verbs 
infinitive, I maintain that such uses, casual with some good writers 
and intentional with others, should still be steadily avoided ; and that 
so far as a writer of to-day does not avoid them, so far he is lacking 

* The Boston Latin School Buiklinsr. 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 37 

either in training or in taste. I maintain further that if a teacher 
believes shall and toill synonymous and to not do idiomatic, he should 
at least know that many critical persons disagree with him, and 
should put his pupils into possession of the facts. 



So much for the history of the examination and for the complaints 
about it. Now with regard to the preparation of candidates. 

What I have said suggests the first requisite of preparation, - — a 
judicious teacher; "neither a prig nor a sloven;" a man who will 
countenance an idiom though it impugn "Rule VIII. p. 41," and who 
will not say quite a ways off, whatever his surroundings may be or may 
have been : who is, in a word, accurate, with the accuracy not of 
pedantry but of common-sense. If, like Overbury's schoolmaster, 
' ' he dares not think a thought that the nominative case governs not 
the verb ;" *if he affects eloquence, and declaims about "environ- 
ments" and "perfect gems;" if he gives the highest marks to the 
weakly grandiose writers (that the case is possible I know from com- 
plaints of weakly grandiose writers who " always got the best marks 
at school") ; if, to borrow a figure from a friend, he does not teach 
his pupils to raise solid piles of brick and mortar before they put on 
their gargoyles ; if he praises elevated sentiments that are obviously 
insincere ; — if he is anything but a plain-spoken gentleman using all 
his power and all his culture in persistent effort to make his pupils 
say ivhat they think, as simply, as directly, as logically as they can, 
he .is not, whatever his attainments, the man to teach English to 
boys. 

" Give us enthusiasm, not all this drill," perhaps you say. I say, 
rather, "G-ive us enthusiasm _/br all this drill;" and, as between 
plodding accuracy and second-hand emotion, give us plodding 
accuracy always. It is so much easier to be gushing than to be 
scholarly ! so much easier to use decorative cant which has been 
worked to the verge of nervous prostration than to be sincere and 
strong ! so much easier to teach the rhetoric of "color" than to teach 
the rhetoric of truth ! Color, as Viola said of Olivia's face, is 
"excellently done, — if G-od did all;" but how much of what semi- 
literary critics call color is of God's doing? 

Next, the teacher of English should have room to work in. English 
should not be relegated as an "easy study" to Saturday sessions and 
"off hours" generally. English is not easy. Properly studied, it 
taxes the best powers of both pupil and master. 

* Overbury : Characters, — A Pedant. 



38 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AXD COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

Next, the teacher of Enghsh shouVl have the constant support of 
his colleagues. His position is delicate : he professes to teach 
nothing but what all the other teachers are presumed to know ; and 
the attitude of these teachers often leads the boys to believe that he 
is a man who makes a fuss about trifles because he knows nothing 
bigger to make a fuss about. A teacher of "Deportment" could 
hardly be more despised. 

Unhappily, though English is better and better taught, there are 
still traces of the tradition that a man who fails totally in all other 
walks of life "will do for English." Impeded by this tradition ; 
with half an hour a day in which to counteract the blunders that his 
colleagues make in four hours and a half ; and with an overwhelming 
sense of inadequacy, the conscientious teacher of English struggles 
thanklessly on. He knows that, in the class-room, his own English 
is not half so good as if he felt less responsible for it. He knows 
that the boys know this, and contrast his halting speech with the 
unhampered eloquence of his fellows: " What right has 7<e," they 
say, "to set himself up over them?" The other teachers may well 
afford to encourage him — for do not they teach what he cannot ? — 
yet often they vote him down, object to his just demands upon the 
time of pupils, and refuse even outward support. If he tries to 
better his position by a pompous manner, he is lost, — and rightly ; 
if he yields in all things, he is lost, — and rightly again. In a study 
wherein ignorance is shameful and perfect accuracy unknown, the 
teacher must possess that most uncommon quality called common- 
sense. With that, and only with that, he may win the support of 
his colleagues and become a power in the school. 

I speak the more emphatically of the embarrassments of the 
"English teacher," because scientific education is gaining ground 
and whole schools of scientific men are enthusiasticall}^ ignorant of 
English. Classical study often produces " Translation English," — 
and "Translation English" is bad enough: but classical study 
eviiices at least an appetite for syntax ; whereas what is frequently 
called scientific study gorges itself with crude science, — as a mis- 
guided athlete bolts raw meat at a training-table. 

True science has delicate thought to express, and needs delicate 
language to express it; yet from Prize Essaj's on "Science in 
Secondary Schools " to text-books used in universities, scientific 
writing is often as arid and rocky as if the writers' minds had been 
neither irrigated nor cleared. Lop-sided enthusiasts slight all training 
in English until they are too busy to stop for it and too callous to 
let it in. As a result, we see university scholars writing English 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 39 

that would sliaine a Freshman, — and their works are put into a 
Freshman's hands. Even Mr. Herbert Spencer giving scientific 
treatment to a literary subject, "Philosophy of Style," writes with 
no style and with harsh inaccuracy. 

G-rant that the teacher of English is a sound man in healthy 
relation with both pupil and colleague, — how is he to prepare boys 
for the correction of bad English ? 

In answering this question I should differ from some teachers. I 
still believe that early training in formal grammar is the best intro- 
duction to the study of the English language. I have never seen a 
fit substitute for it, and have seldom met a man without it who was 
not conspicuously the worse off. "I hold very strongly," says 
Cardinal Newman, "that the first step in intellectual training is to 
impress upon a boy's mind the idea of science, method, order, 
principle, and system ; of rule and exception, of richness and 
harmony. This is commonly and excellently done by making him 
begin with Grammar ; nor can too great accuracy, or minuteness and 
subtlety of teaching, be used towards him, as his faculties expand, 
with this simple purpose." * 

I do not mean that ability to answer a sudden call for "Rule VIII., 
p. 41," is essential to anybody; nor do I believe, with a school- 
mistress I know, that inability to define a "modifier of the third 
order" is a blot in the scutcheon. I mean that a young pupil should 
learn something of grammatical analysis, — of parsing ; and that he 
should apply what he learns — first to graded exercises, secondly to 
short passages of good prose. To impress a boy with the truth that 
every sentence needs grammatical structure, make him scrutinize the 
structure of many sentences. Through parsing he will learn the 
groundwork of grammar ; and the knowledge will stand by him while 
he lives. 

My faith in the discipline of parsing is not purely theoretic. I 
remember with gratitude the master of a New England grammar 
school. He was not learned ; in many ways he was not wise : but 
he was as good a teacher of elementary grammar as I could wish to 
see. He taught, not rules only, but the application of rules ; he 
encouraged the discussion of open questions, never hesitating to 
admit that they were open. He maintained an attitude so far from 
" pedagogic " that it amazes me when I recall it. He was courteous 
as well as stimulating, always bearing himself as an elder soldier, not 
a better. Moreover, little boys as we were, we thought none the less 

* The Idea of a University : Preface, p. xix. 



40 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

of him — though perhaps more of ourselves — when he acknowledged 
that he was wrong and we were right. Under such a teacher parsing 
was fun. I can hardly overestimate his instruction : what we were 
fit to learn he taught us ; and, best of all, he taught us how to teach. 

Life among cultivated people may give a boy ready and winning 
speech, a sense of style, and a sort of intuitive accuracy ; but all this 
is not enough, even for the few whose privilege it is. Again and again 
I have seen the untrained youth, however cultivated for his years, 
flinch before every searching test. So long as he does not stop to 
think, his writing is presentable ; ask him to think, and his mind 
lies down in despair. Yet if he is ever to express anything more 
complex than a fleeting impression, he must learn to think ; and the 
sooner he begins to learn, the better his thinking will be. Early 
training, then, — drill in the laws of the structure of sentences, — I 
regard as of prime importance. Through this a teacher may rapidly 
develop the thinking power of his pupils. Show a boy how reasons 
ne behind rules, — reasons born of blunders now and then, but rea- 
sons still ; rouse his faculties by revealing the human side of gram- 
mar. Teach him as many of the reasons as he can understand, 
urging him always to look for them first himself. Tell him why 
shall means one thing and will another ; why it is not well to use and 
before which unless another which precedes. Save the rules from 
being matters of memory alone. 

Not that the cultivation of memory should, in children, be subordi- 
nate to anything ; but that it should nearly always be combined with 
something. Poetry, for instance, a child may learn by heart years 
before he can understand it ; because poetry, even unintelligently 
learned, does more than train the memory. It wakens the sense of 
rhythm, makes new words familiar, rouses imagination. The rules 
of grammar, however, if learned unintelligently, benumb the mind ; 
they must be intelligently mastered if they would quicken it. It is 
poor training for the memory, to give it nothing worth remembering. 
Some candidates , for admission to Harvard College have memories 
that serve merely to expose their darkling incompetency. 

Much of the preparation for the ' ' sentence paper " may and should 
be done in the correction of the boy's own writing. The pupil should 
be made to recast every ungrammatical sentence, and to give a reason 
for every change in choice or in order of words. 

I believe that at most of our schools the criticism of themes is 
miserably inadequate. My belief rests partly on a j^riori grounds. 
In small schools, one man teaches many subjects, — his professorship, 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 41 

as Dr. Holmes would say, is not a chair but a settee, — so that even if 
his pupils are few, he has not time to give them in any one subject 
such close personal attention as English Composition should claim. 
Large schools often devote a whole teacher to English, — a whole 
teacher, working five hours a day in the class-room, teaching a hun- 
dred lively boys, and doing divers odd jobs such as every school 
expects. What with preparation of lessons, and the exhaustion that 
follows vigorous teaching, he has few working hours out of school. 
Indeed, one of the best teachers in the country tells me that, of his 
five hours in school, only one sees him at his best. It need not be 
the first hour, — he may save himself ; but before it his work is 
deliberately perfunctory, and after it inevitably so. Into that hour 
goes the freshness of the day. The rest of his teaching is mechan- 
ically good, not vividly good. 

Suppose a teacher has a hundred pupils, each writing one theme a 
fortnight. If the themes are four pages long, he cannot, weary as he 
is, mark carefully more than three in an hour. He thus needs fifteen 
or twenty hours a week for written criticism alone. Discussion of 
the criticism with the writers individually, — a highly important part 
of the work, and, by the way, the most exhausting part, — demands 
about five hours more ; so that, all together, if he is to teach composi- 
tion well, he must devote to the teaching twenty or twenty-five hours 
besides the time that he spends with the class. Yet for this extra work 
his employers, in all likelihood, make no provision, — and his head 
makes no provision. It is no fault of his if he grows dry ; for nothing 
desiccates a man quicker than reading themes. 

Moreover, to mark themes well, a man should have some leisure. 
He must cultivate himself, do something beside " shop work," read 
literature to offset the effect of themes, counteract rapid evaporation 
by no less rapid infusion of something beautiful and inspiring. All 
this takes time, — and freshness too. The jaded theme-reader is 
past inspiration. 

Yet theme-reading is interesting. No man to whom it is not, no 
man who cannot do it with enthusiasm, has a right to undertake it.— • 
as, in general, no man who cannot drudge with enthusiasm has a right 
to be a teacher. Theme-reading is interesting, if the reader is not 
worked like a factory-hand, till his very soul is numb. 

Thus far my reasoning is a priori, as I have said, but it is sup- 
ported by painful signs. Everywhere we see teachers who are, as 
the cabman said of his horse, " stay hig with us, but not living;" 
teachers whose bones are marrowless, whose blood is cold, whose only 
life is in their nerves ; teachers with aching heads and ruined diges- 



42 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

tions and shrunken faces — steadfastly evaporating for a thankless 
public. How can their work inspire a warm-blooded boy? How can 
it be good work, when its motive power is no longer mental elasticity 
but a suicidal conscience ? 

Other teachers we see who are discreet enough to live though they 
crowd theme-reading to the wall. They do what they are paid for, and 
do it well ; but in teaching composition they cannot be said to do 
good work, since they do none. There are good teachers of English, 
in our preparatory schools ; there are others who would be good 
if they had time : but as yet few educators begin to recognize, either 
with mind or with money, the just demands of English composition ; 
and where composition is neglected, correction is ignored. 

I once saw a number of themes from a school that is at least the 
equal of any in the country. These themes had been read and marked. 
On the outside of each was a diagram drawn by the boy and contain- 
ing the words PenmansMp^ Spelling^ Punctuation^ and — I think — 
Comjyosition, with a blank opposite each word. Each category had 
its maximum figure ; and the sum of tlie maxima was one hundred. 
The teacher filled the blanks with marks, added these marks together, 
and thus gave the boy a percentage. The themes may have been 
discussed in the class ; but so far as written criticism is concerned, 
they might almost as well have been let alone. Whatever the 
teacher put on them, beyond the figures, was infinitely small, and — 
as geometry teaches — might be neglected. 

One theme was sent to me as a specimen of the best work m the 
school. The writer had taken a formidable subject and had wrestled 
with it manfully. Yet, though his theme was remarkably long, a few 
commas in the text and two or three words in the margin were almost 
all the guidance that he got from the instructor. He lost three or 
four marks, — for punctuation, I believe; but the instructor added 
to his score a well-earned bonus for general excellence, and marked 
the theme one liundred. 

Having secured permission to criticise this theme, I spent an hour 
or two upon it, trying to point out both its faults and its merits. 
The boy had done so much that it was a shame to see his teacher 
doing so little. There were a hundred things to say about the com- 
position ; and the boy, by the strong intelligence of his work, showed 
himself able to apply them all. Yet it was nobody's business to 
examine his writing minutely. Nobody had time for him. 

Make a boy test severely every sentence of his theme, and make 
him rewrite every sentence that does not stand the test ; then the 
"sentence paper" will be easy to him : but so long as you have no 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 43 

time to drill him in correcting his own English, he will be ill-prepared 
to correct the English of others. 

Of text-books I know little. Few that I have seen commend them- 
selves to me ; and some induce dejection bordering on rhetorical 
agnosticism. The best of them are, as a rule, unfit for young minds ; 
and the worst, for any minds. To meet the needs of beginners. 
Professor A. S. Hill is writing a little book midway between a 
grammar and a rhetoric ; and this is sure to be good. Mr. Strang's 
"Exercises in English" (with the ominous heading, ^^ Exercises in 
False Syntax") will prove purifying if taken in small doses ; and, 
for teachers. Dr. Hodgson's Manual, clumsy and fastidious though 
it is, cannot fail to be of service. At present, however, the crying 
need is not of text-books, but of good teachers with fair play. 

It is easy, I know, to say how people ought to teach, and fearfully 
hard to teach. Just now the College asks of the preparatory teacher 
nothing but taste, common-sense, and enthusiastic drudgery. Of 
his employers it asks more. "Better the condition of the prepai'atory 
teacher," it says. "Do not put on him a load that will break his 
back unless he pitches it off. Remember, too, that you can get 
ten teachers of G-reek or Latin to one teacher of English, since the 
market affords ten times as much learning as common-sense. Pick 
your teachers carefully ; then let them have elbow-room, and vitality 
enough to use their elbows." 



In conclusion, I would speak my convictions once more. The 
examination in the correction of bad English is a valuable test of 
acuteness and accuracy. Preparation for it calls for early and 
intimate knowledge of the groundwork of English grammar ; for 
continuous effort to apply that knowledge rationally ; for long prac- 
tice in writing, under faithful supervision : above all, for a teacher, 
not overworked, who commands the respect alike of pupils and of 
colleagues, — for a man or woman, learned or unlearned, with a clear 
head, an enduring conscience, an elastic enthusiasm, and uncommon 
common-sense. 

September, 1890. 



44 TWEXTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE EXGLISH. 



THE PREPARATORY WORK IN ENGLISH AS SEEN 
BY A HARVARD EXAMINER.* 

By Byron Satterlee Hurlbut, Harvard University. 

It is rather difficult to criticise generally the entrance examination 
books in English. Except in one point, we may call them fair in 
quality. There were, of course, many grammatical errors ; these, 
however, were slips, not positive faults. They occurred when a 
writer lost control of a long or an involved sentence. As a rule, a 
mistake in one sentence was not repeated in other sentences. Many 
of the books were full of Latin constructions, but the teachers of 
Latin, it seems to me, deserve more censure for this than the teachers 
of English. Aside from this distinct fault the sentences were, on 
the whole, fairly well constructed. 

In regard to paragraphs and punctuation, the men seemed more 
uncertain. Most had good intentions, but that was all. A few 
thought that each sentence should constitute a paragraph ; more, 
that there should be no paragraphs at all. The latter, however, 
were men whose work showed traces of haste and carelessness. 
Were I to grade the class, I should say Paragraphs, C — , Punctua- 
tion, D loio. Few men knew that there were marks of punctuation 
other than commas, which they scattered about in rather haphazard 
fashion, and periods. . 

The compositions were, on the whole, well proportioned ; there 
was very little unfinished work. The writers showed intelligent 
appreciation of the points of the stories and considerable skill in 
selecting and managing incidents ; not many spoiled their work by 
trying to crowd in all the details they could remember. 

The great fault of the themes as a whole, was the failure to 
appreciate the value, the fitness, of words. There was a strong 
tendency to "echo" stereotyped newspaper phrases, words of the 
author that had caught the eye, and fine terms that lingered in the 
memory. These the writers introduced without thought of the fitness 
of the phrase, and the result was most inharmonious. There was 
lack of simplicity, of naturalness, of ease and grace of expression. 

* An extract from a letter written to Professor Briggs by Mr. Hurlbut, who 
read the books in English written by the candidates for admission to Harvard in 
June, 1891. For obvious reasons it suppresses the names of schools which are 
mentioned by Mr. Hurlbut as presenting special excellence in English work. 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 45 

The boys liad no feeling of ownership in the words ; they were try- 
ing to write good — proper, in a narrow, prim sense is a more suitable 
word — English, and they were very conscious of the effort. In all 

the books, except those that came from and , this fault 

was noticeable. 

The two schools I have just named sent the best books. The 

average mark of the books was, I think, higher than that of 

the books, but the former school sent only six men. The men 

from wrote with more freedom, with less conscious effort, than 

any others. I could, of course, form no opinion of the Boston 
schools, for the books of their candidates were scattered among the 
Cambridge books ; consequently they were not read at one time. 
The best book was written by a man who took the examination in 

Cambridge. It seems to me that and attain most nearly 

the end we desire to reach in teaching English, — to enable the stu- 
dent clearly and easily to express his ideas in simple, idiomatic 
English. 

In making up the mark of a candidate, we counted the theme for 
two-thirds of the whole, the correction of the sentences for one-third. 
As a rule, a man who received a high mark (6^ or 7) on his theme 
brought down his average slightly by the mark on his sentences ; men 
in the middle rank (4J to 6) raised their averages a little or received 
about the mark of the theme ; men in low rank (3 to 4i^) raised 
their averages. Many were "pulled through" by the correction of 
sentences. Men who "failed badly" in their compositions were 
equally poor in the correction of sentences. On the whole, the marks 
on the sentences were higher than those on the themes, — to estimate 

roughly I should say 5^ to 4. Here again and came to 

the front. The average of both schools must have been very high. 

Many of the men were very heedless in correcting the sentences. 
It was amusing to note how many in correcting the third sentence 
made the mistake which they corrected in the fourth. They had 

knowledge but they could not apply it. Few, save the men, 

thought that there was anything wrong with "quite" in the eleventh ; 
in the tenth very few corrected " Mr. Thomas' " ; not many saw the 
misuse of " usurped" in the second ; the other sentences were faMy 
well corrected. 

In a word, the boys seem to understand the principles of composi- 
tion fairly well : they have learned rules but they cannot apply them ; 
their work lacks simplicity, naturalness, and ease, — qualities which 
practice alone can give. 

October, 1891. 



46 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 



COLLEGE REQUIREMENTS IN ENGLISH.* 
By Byron Satterlee Hurlbut, Harvard University. 

In this paper I shall consider college requirements in English 
wholly from the Harvard point of view, taking up (1) what 
we ask ; (2) what we expect, or rather what we know we shall 
receive ; (3) what we feel we ought to have : three things that differ 
vastly. 

In discussing the teaching of English in the schools I am forced 
back to my own experience as a student in the public schools of 
Massachusetts, and to the statements of the members of the present 
Freshman class at Harvard and those of a few other undergraduates. 
The first source is not particularly valuable, for it is now nine years 
since I graduated from the high school. At Cambridge this year 
the subject of the first Freshman theme was ' ' My Preparation in 
English." From these themes I have derived much valuable infor- 
mation. The Freshman, of course, does not always take the best 
or the broadest view ; he does, however, on the whole, state 
matters with a considerable degree of accuracy. One thing we 
are almost sure to get — that is, his individual opinion in regard to 
the method of teaching English at the preparatory school which he 
attended. Very often this opinion is not flattering. 

It is only within recent years that English has been thought 
worthy a place among the entrance examinations of colleges. In the 
Harvard Catalogue of 1865-66 we find it first mentioned as a 
requirement for admission : ' ' Candidates will also be examined in 
reading English aloud " is tacked to the end of the list of examina- 
tions; In the Catalogue of 1872-73 the following note is printed in 
italics at the end of the list: "Correct spelling, punctuation, and 
expression, as well as legible hand-writing, are expected of all appli- 
cants for admission; and failure in any of these particulars will be 
taken into account at the examination." In 1873 there is the first 
demand for a theme : ' ' Each candidate will be required to write a 
short English composition correct in spelling, punctuation, grammar, 
and expression, the subject to be taken from such works of standard 
authors as shall Ibe announced from time to time." 

* A paper read before the Academic and High School Teachers' Association 
of Western Massachusetts, at AVestfield, Feb. 5, 1892. 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 47 

Other colleges have different requirements in English : Yale has 
no entrance examination ; Princeton, The University of Michigan, 
and The University of Pennsylvania ask for a composition and give, 
in addition, an examination in grammar and in certain elementary 
principles of composition. 

Since 1873 the requirements in EugUsh composition at Harvard 
have been practically the same, except that, in addition to writing a 
composition, the candidates have been required to correct specimens 
of bad English. The Catalogue of 1891-92 omits as unnecessary 
some details of the requirements and adds: " The English written 
by a candidate in any of his examination-books may be regarded as 
part of his examination in English, in case the evidence afforded by 
the examination-book in English is insufficient." 

Such are the requirements in English for admission to Harvard 
College. The student is not asked to give rules of grammar or of 
composition, to analyze sentences, or to explain misuses of English. 
Harvard simply says : What is the practical result of your education 
in English? is the development of your power of expression pro- 
portional to your mental development? in short, what skill have you 
in the management of this tool which you must constantly employ ? 
Surely no demand could be more reasonable, more legitimate than 
this. The University goes at once to the practical end of all study 
and asks the result. 

A simple analysis of the requirements is this : ' ' The composition 
must be correct in spelhng," — at Cambridge, Worcester is the 
standard adopted ; the candidate must know the rules of punctua- 
tion, and, what is more important, he must be able to apply them ; 
he must write grammatically ; and he must express his thoughts 
clearly and concisely in simple, idiomatic English. 

Concerning the first three of these requirements it is easy to 
decide: either the composition is, on the whole, — for the composi- 
tion is judged as a whole, — correct or it is not. The fourth require- 
ment is the one of greatest importance : ' ' The composition shall 
be correct in expression." As 1 understand this requirement, it 
means the result of the candidate's whole education, Greek, Latin, 
mathematics, science — everything; it shows his mental develop- 
ment ; can he think and express his thoughts ? Here, of course, the 
examiner reads between the lines. After the single glance that tells 
whether the composition fulfils the first three requirements, the 
examiner considers the fourth, where he finds not only the stamp of 
the candidate's individuality, but also ver}^ good evidence as to the 
sort of training he has received. The reader can quickly decide 



48 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

whether the writer is using his own thoughts or something that has 
been crammed into his head for the purpose of getting him through 
the examination. There are few places where the difference 
between the genuine and the sham is more apparent. In the former 
case the composition is consistent : the writer will undoubtedly show 
immaturity of thought, but he will also show that he does think and 
try to express his ideas. In the latter case, the composition is a 
patchwork not only of ideas but of language. Several times in 
reading the last set of admission examination-books, the examiners 
came across books in which a polished little essay on the novel or 
the drama was followed by a ragged and jumbled composition on the 
subject chosen from the examination paper ; to this, in turn, was 
attached with much straining and twisting a neat peroration of a 
general nature — suitable to attach to any essay. Every one knows 
that training of this sort is of the flimsiest and most hurtful nature 
— hurtful not only technically but morally. 

For several years now Harvard has allowed candidates to take the 
Enghsh examination at the Final Examination only. This has 
aided not the University alone but the candidate and his teacher as 
well. To the examiner it has given less work ; to the candidate, an 
additional year of development and training ; to the teacher, an 
opportunity to present his pupil for examination as thoroughly 
prepared as possible, thus increasing the reputation of the school. 
How much the percentage of failures has decreased since the Faculty 
refused to allow candidates to take the English examination at the 
Prehminary Examination I am unable to state : doubtless the decrease 
has been considerable. Some may feel that it is a hardship not to 
give the candidate a chance to try the examination in two successive 
years, but a little thought should convince them that this rule is no 
hardship. Every person who gains admission to the Freshman class 
of Harvard College should easily pass the examination in English : 
not one should be conditioned. 

That this is not the case, that the candidates do not meet the 
requirements satisfactorily, we all know. For the last two years 
fifteen per cent, roughly speaking, of the candidates have been 
conditioned. Think for a moment what this means. Here I speak 
more especially to teachers of high schools. You send but a small 
proportion of your students to college ; the greater part of them go 
at once into the world. You will grant, I think, that, as a rule, 
those students whom you send to college are the best, intellectually 
the keenest, that you have. Of these students, as I have said, the 
University conditions about fifteen per cent. Estimate, then, the 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AXD COLLEGE EXGLISH. 49 

number of persons who are sent out annuallj'- from our high schools 
unable to express their thoughts with a fair degree of clearness, 
unable to write passably good English. If to this number you 
add that vast number who never see the inside of a high school, 
who go to work as soon as they leave the grammar schools, 3^ou have 
a rather startling number of people who are said to be educated, 
who should, be but are not, fairly skilful in the management of a tool 
wliich they must use every day. There is but one conclusion to draw 
from this : there is something fundamentally wrong in the method of 
teaching English in the secondary schools. 

Details of the faults in the examination-books of the candidates 
for admission to Harvard were discussed in my letter to Professor 
Briggs, published in "The Academy" for October, 1891. 

From the examiners' point of view we say that the cause of so 
many failures in English composition is lack of practice in its 
broadest sense : not only lack of practice in composition writing 
but also lack of training in the expression of thought. From the 
Freshmen's themes we gain more important information : we see the 
lack of practice of which the examiners complain, and, further, a 
serious fault in the teaching itself. For the student and for 
his teacher English composition is so much taskwork. One of the 
gravest faults which underlie the whole system is that the training 
in English is given not for the lasting benefit of the student, but to 
enable him to pass the Harvard entrance examination ; when he has 
read the required books and written a composition, when he is 
stuffed with the necessary facts and supposed to be able to bring 
them out as occasion calls, his education in English is complete — 
the time is given to something called more important. That English 
composition, in which the student should be most carefully trained 
during his whole preparatory course, should be considered of less 
than secondary importance, to be tucked in here or crowded out 
there, is manifestly iinjust. This is one of the most important studies : 
it deserves as much time and attention as Latin, Greek, or science. 
The place that it is to occupj^ in the student's life is vastly more 
important than that of Latin or of G-reek. Is it not reasonable that 
the student should be taught to express his ideas ? that great stress 
should be laid upon this ? 

The great body of teachers of English in the colleges will, I think, 
support me when I say that the instruction in English which we are 
forced to give to Freshmen and perhaps to Sophomores should 
all be finished in the preparatory schools. It is absurd that a 
college should be obliged to teach spelling, punctuation, grammar, 



50 TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

construction of sentences and of paragraphs ; that students who 
read Cicero, Virgil, and Homer, and translate English prose into 
fairly good Latin or Greek cannot write their mother tongue without 
making the most elementary mistakes. The fault, as I have said, is 
a radical one ; it lies deeper than the high schools. First, however, 
let us consider what place English — here I deal especially with 
English composition — should occupy in the high school. 

The study of English should go on during the whole of the 
preparatory course. When the student comes to you from the 
grammar school, he should be prepared, after his too long, practically 
undiluted study of grammar, to begin at once to study understand- 
ingly the principles of rhetoric. All his work should be accompanied 
by practice : in English composition he should know the practical 
value of ever3'thing he learns. He should write a theme at least 
once a week, twice if possible ; in no other way can he learn to 
apply rules. These themes the teacher of English should correct. 
Then, most important of all, the student should rewrite the 
whole theme, profiting by the instructor's correction, improving 
the theme not only where the instructor suggests changes, but 
wherever his own good sense prompts a revision. In the whole 
practice of English composition there is nothing more helpful than 
this rewriting. 

A word as to the choice of the subjects for these themes. As the 
time for the college admission examinations draws near, it will be 
necessary for those students who intend to take them to write some 
themes upon subjects chosen from the books prescribed by the 
College. These books should, I think, be read outside the class ; 
that he has read them the student will show hj his compositions ; it 
is enough for the teacher to talk generally of the book or the author 
in order that the student may read intelligently, and, for the rest, to 
hold himself ready to explain whatever the student cannot understand. 
Aside from the subjects taken from these books, try to interest the 
student in the work by selecting topics in which he is interested — 
the affairs of the school, sports, questions of the day for the boy 
who reads the newspapers. As a rule, do not confine the class to a 
single subject. It is a good plan often to allow the student to choose 
his own subject. Tell him this beforehand and, if he wishes, let him 
think or read about one. Most of the themes should be written in 
the class-room ; this gives practice in concentration of thought and 
teaches the student to express his ideas rapidly and to write under 
any circumstances. The more elaborate advanced work must, of 
course, be done outside the class. 



TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 51 

I am a firm believer in tlie suggestive method of correcting 
themes. We must suit the criticism to the individual ; but, as 
a rule, I hold that it is better to sa}^, " this is not the best 
word," "this sentence is awkward," " this is ungrammatical," than 
to give the student the right word or the correct form. In this way 
you teach him to think, and this is, or should be, the object of all 
teaching. Insist upon the use of the dictionary. Each student 
should have a good, not too much abridged edition, and every school- 
room should have at least one unabridged. Insist upon accuracy in 
the use of words. As I said before, this lack of accuracy in use, 
and the lack of the feeling of possession, of power over words are 
two very grave faults in the admission books. Teach the student to 
discriminate between fine shades of meaning — he is taught to do 
this in Latin, he should be in English. The student should also 
learn synonyms — you can suggest them in the composition by 
sending him to the dictionary for another or a better word. Thus, as 
his vocabulary grows, teach him to choose those words which will 
best express his thoughts — to suit the word to the thought — that 
his English may be idiomatic, clear, and concise in accordance with 
the requirements of ease and grace in expression. Above all teach 
him to be natural, to express his individuality, and to avoid all fine 
writing. Too many teachers think that composition means something 
utterly foreign to the writer's self and to all ordinary forms of 
expression. 

A single example will illustrate this. One candidate whose com- 
position was stuffed with fine phrases could not understand why he 
had been conditioned. At the preparatory school, he said, his com- 
position had never received a mark lower than ninety-five on a scale 
of one hundred; in fact, he modestly explained, he was "the best 
writer in the school." When the examiner told him that the stilted 
theme he had written was worthless, he was greatly surprised. His 
teacher, he said, had taught him to avoid "all common expressions 
in writing" — something he did most successfully. 

Unaided, however, the teacher of English cannot train his pupils 
to express their thoughts with sincerity, directness, and accuracy : 
he must have help. The importance of home surroundings I cannot 
discuss here ; but there is one thing upon which I should like to 
insist, — every teacher in every school should be a teacher of 
English. The teachers of Latin and Greek are, as a rule, about as 
powerful enemies as any with whom the teacher of English has to 
contend. If they had a mind to array themselves on the side of 
good English, fully half the battle would be Avon. In translations 



52 TWENTY YEARS OE SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 

the teacher of language should insist upon idiomatic English. Ask 
for a literal translation if 3^ou will, but before you leave the passage 
see that it is in good English form. 

The root of the trouble, however, does not lie whoil}'' in the high 
schools. A large portion can be found in the grammar schools. A 
slow change is, I believe, going on there which will in time show 
its results in the colleges and among the people. The teachers are 
at last beginning to see the advantages of individuality of expression 
— that, primarily, their object is to teach the child to think and to 
express his thoughts. But at present too little attention is given to 
this. 

My own experience may serve to illustrate my point. Thirteen 
years ago I was readj'^ to enter the high school. In grammar, I had 
parsed my way from the fifth to the first grade of the school. In 
those five years I had written perhaps five compositions. These 
were done outside the regular work to please one or two teachers 
whose consciences had occasionally pricked them on the subject of 
English composition. I spent four years in the high school, with- 
out writing, as far as I can remember, a single composition. Once 
a week for three years I read Shakspere, Scott, or Longfellow, and 
once a month I declaimed. Such was my English education when 
I entered Harvard, and I came from the public schools of a large 
Massachusetts city. 

This, however, was not the most serious fault of the method of 
teaching then in vogue. Pupils were not taught to assimilate the 
books they studied. Neither do the teachers of to-da}^ insist on this 
as they should. In my own school experience a premium of high 
marks was actually set upon a mere rote repetition of the statements 
of the text-books. In those days my memory was good, and I 
could recite the lesson in geography or history much as a phono- 
graph might do the thing, — often with about as much appreciation 
of what I was saying. Once, I remember, I recited the whole of 
the French and Indian War out of a book with a reddish brown 
cover. My sole recollection of what I said is that something hap- 
pened to Miss Jane MacCree — I believe that she was carried off by 
the Indians, but I remember this, I know, because I stumbled at that 
point in my recitation and had to be prompted. Later I learned 
Greek and Eoman history in the same way. Surely it is an easy 
method of teaching to say, "Smith, begin the lesson;" "Next, go 
on." 

These things, I believe, are being changed now, but the change 
is going on all too slowly. A few weeks ago I discussed the matter 



TWENTY YEARS OE SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH. 53 

with a teacher in the lowest grade of one of the grammar schools 
of a large city ; she told me that the method she had adopted in 
teaching small children to read and to think was sufficiently novel to 
attract the attention of the superintendent of schools. Her method 
was simply this : After the children had read the lesson, she bade 
them close their books and then asked them to tell the story in their 
own words. This is the correct method, — the method which should 
be adopted everywhere. From the time the child first enters school, 
he should be taught to express his own ideas : he should study 
und er standingly . 

Perhaps you say that this is not English composition, nor has it 
any thing to do with college requirements in English. It is English 
composition in the broadest, the best sense, and it is what Harvard 
asks. As soon as the child begins to write, he should put upon 
paper the expression of the thought he has assimilated. This train- 
ing should go hand in hand with the instruction he receives in every 
study. Then he will know the rules of grammar and he will be 
able to do what many high school graduates of to-day cannot do — 
apply them. The children who enter the high schools from the 
grammar schools will begin there the training in English composition 
which is now given in college, and the college student will be able 
to devote himself to university work. 

June, 1892. 



APPENDIX. 



HISTORY OF THE REQUHIEMENT IN ENGLISH FOR 
ADMISSION TO HARVARD COLLEGE. 

The first mention of anytliing approacliing an examination in English 
as a requirement for admission to Harvard College appears in the Cata- 
logue for 1865-66 : 

" Candidates will also be examined in reading English aloud." 

For four years this sentence was, as Mr. Hurlbut says, "tacked to the 
end of the list " of prescribed subjects with nothing to call attention to it. 
In the Catalogue for 1869-70 Ave find for the first time the heading 
" English." The requirement for 1870 runs as follows : 

" English." 
" Students are also required to he examined, as early as possible after their 
admission, in reading English. Prizes will be awarded for excellence. For 
1870 students may prepare themselves in Craik's English of Shakespeare (Julius 
Caesar) or in Milton's Comus. Attention to Derivations and Critical Analysis 
is recommended." 

For the next three years this paragraph remains substantially unchanged 
except that Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield" is substituted for Shak- 
spere's "Julius Csesar." In the Catalogue for 1872-73 the candidate 
is for the first time informed that the quality of his written English 
will be taken into account : 

" !Ey Correct spelling, punctuation, and exjjression, as well as legible hand- 
writing, are expected of all applicants for admission ; and failure in any of 
these particulars will be taken into account at the exami7iation." 

In the following year an examination in English composition was for 
the first time imposed on every candidate for admission to Harvard College. 
The requirement for that year as printed in the Catalogue for 1873-74 is 
as follows : 

"English Composition. Each candidate will be required to write a short 
English Composition, correct in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and expression, 
the subject to be taken from such works of standard authors as shall be 
announced from time to time. The subject for 1874 will be taken from one of 
the following works : Shakespeare's Tempest, Julius Caesar, and Merchant of 
Venice ; Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield; Scott's Ivanhoe, and Lay of the Last 
Minstrel." 

The requirement for 1878 says that the " short English Composition " must be 
correct not only " in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and expression," but also 
in " division by paragraphs ;" the requirement for 1879 precludes a common kind 
of misunderstanding by making clear that ' ' Every candidate is expected to be 
familiar with all the books in this list." 



56 APPENDIX. 

In the Catalogue for 1880-81 the following paragraph appears for the 
first time : 

"In 1882, every candidate will also be required to correct specimens of bad 
English given him at the time of the examination. Por this purpose the time 
of the examination will be lengthened by half an hour." 

Although the time for the examination was lengthened to an hour and a 
half, the examination continued to count as a one-hour examination. 

The Catalogue for 1886-87 says : 

'^English (after 1887) must be reserved for the candidate's final examination 
for admission. With this exception, candidates may offer themselves for the 
preliminary examination in any studies, elementary or advanced, in which their 
teachers certify that they are prepared." 

The Catalogue for 1891-92 has the following addition: 

" The English written by a candidate in any of his examination-books may be 
regarded as part of his examination in English, in case the evidence afforded by 
the examination-book in English is insufficient." 

In the Catalogue for 1898-94 teachers are explicitly told how to deal 
with the prescribed reading : 

"The candidate is expected to read intelligently all the books prescribed. 
He should read them as he reads other books ; he will be expected not to know 
them minutely, but to have freshly in mind their most important parts. What- 
ever the subject of the composition, the examiner will regard knowledge of the 
book as less important than ability to write English." 

In conformity with the recommendations made at a meeting of teachers 
held at Philadelphia in 1894, a change was made in the requirement. 
The new requirement was optional in 1895, but is prescribed for 1896 and 
subsequent years. As stated in the Catalogue for 1895-96 it is as follows : 

^^ English. ^^'Einglish. may be offered either as a Preliminary or as a Final 
subject. In 1896 and thereafter the examination will occupy two hours. 

" The examination will consist of two parts, which, however, cannot be t'aken 
separately : — 

"I. The candidate will be required to write a paragraph or two on each of 
several topics chosen by him from a considerable number — perhaps ten or 
fifteen — set before him on the examination paper. In 1896 the topics will be 
drawn from the following works : — 

" Shakspere's Midsummer Night's Dream; Defoe's History of the Plague in 
London ; Irving's Tales of a Traveller ; Scott's Woodstock ; Macaulay's Essay 
on Milton ; Longfellow's Evangeline ; George Eliot's Silas Marner. 

" The candidate is expected to read intelligently all the books prescribed. 
He should read them as he reads other books ; he is expected, not to know them 
minutely, but to have freshly in mind their most important parts. In every 
case the examiner will regard knowledge of the book as less important than 
ability to write English. 



APPEXDIX. 57 

" As additional evidence of preparation, tlie candidate may present an exercise 
book, properly certified by his instructor, containing compositions or other 
"written work. 

"The works prescribed for this part of the examination in 1897, 1898, and 
1899 are as follows : — 

" In 1897 : Shakspere's As You Like It; Defoe's History of the Plague in 
London ; Irving's Tales of a Traveller ; Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales ; Long- 
fellow's Evangeline ; George Eliot's Silas Marner. 

" In 1898 : Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I and II; Pope's Iliad, Books I 
and XXII ; The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers in the Spectator ; Goldsmith's Vicar 
of Wakefield ; Coleridge's Ancient Mariner ; Southey's Life of Nelson ; Carlyle's 
Essay on Burns ; Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal ; Hawthorne's House of the 
Seven Gables. 

" In 1899 : Dry den's Palamon and Arcite ; Pope's Iliad, Books I, VI, XXII, 
and XXIV ; The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers in the Spectator ; Goldsmith's 
Vicar of Wakefield; Coleridge's Ancient Mariner; De Quincey's Flight of a 
Tartar Tribe ; Cooper's Last of the Mohicans ; Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal ; 
Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables. 

"II. A certain number of books will be prescribed for careful study. This 
part of the examination will be upon subject-matter, literary form, and logical 
structure, and will also test the candidate's ability to express his knowledge 
with clearness and accuracy. 

" The books prescribed for this part of the examination are : 

" In 1896 : Shakspere's Merchant of Venice ; Milton's L'Allegro, II Penseroso, 
Comus, and Lycidas ; Webster's Eirst Bunker Hill Oration. 

" In 1897 : Shakspere's Merchant of Venice; Burke's Speech on Conciliation 
with America; Scott's Marmion ; Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson. 

"In 1898: Shakspere's Macbeth; Burke's Speech on Conciliation with 
America ; De Quincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe ; Tennyson's Princess. 

"In 1899: Shakspere's Macbeth; Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I and II; 
Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America; Carlyle's Essay on Burns. 

" No candidate M'ill be accepted in English whose work is seriously defective 
in point of spelling, punctuation, grammar, or division into paragraphs. 

"In connection with the reading and study of the prescribed books, parallel 
or subsidiary reading should be encouraged, and a considerable amount of 
English poetry should be committed to memory. The essentials of English 
grammar should not be neglected in preparatory study. 

" The English written by a candidate in any of his examination-books may be 
regarded as part of his examination in English, in case the evidence afforded by 
the examination-book in English is insufficient. 

" The attention of candidates who have passed in English at the Preliminary 
Examination is called to the subject of Optional Examinations for the Anticipa- 
tion of College Studies (on pp. 210, 211"^). 

* See the University Calalogue for 1895-96. 



58 APPENDIX. 



COURSES OF INSTRUCTION IN ENGLISH 
OFFERED BY HARVARD COLLEGE. 



For 1814-75. 

PRESCRIBED STUDIES. 

Prescribed Rhetoric. — Asst. Professor A. S. Hill. 

Sophomore Year. 

Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric (Book 2, Chapters I-VI) . — Whately's 
Rhetoric (Part 3). — Herbert Spencer's Philosophy of Style. — AVritten 
Exercises. 

Two hours a week. First half-year. 

Junior Year. 

Whately's Rhetoric (to end of Part 2). — Lessing's Laocoon (Chapters 13-26). 
Two hours a week. Second half-year. 

Prescribed Themes and Forensics. 

Sophomore Year. Six Themes : Asst. Professor A. S. Hill. 

Junior Year. Six Themes : Professor Child. 

Four Forensics : Asst. Professor Palmer. 

Senior Year. Four Forensics. 

Candidates for Honors may substitute for Forensics an equal number of 
Theses in their special departments, provided such substitution is permitted by 
the Instructors in those departments. 

ELECTIVES. 

English 1. — Professor Child. 

English. — Hadley's History of the English Language. — The Elements of 
Anglo-Saxon. — Morris's Historical English Accidence. — Lectures. 
Two hours a week. 1 Junior, 13 Sophomores, 1 Freshman. 

English 2. — Professor Child. 

Anglo-Saxon and Early English. — Beowulf. — Matzner's Altenglishe Sprach- 
proben. 

Three hours a week. (Not given this year.) 

English 3. — Professor Child. 

English Literature. — Chaucer. — Shakspere. — Bacon. — Milton. — Dryden. 
Three hours a week. 7 Seniors, S Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen. 



APPENDIX. 59 

For 1879-80. 

PRESCRIBED COURSES. 

SOPHOMORE TEAR. 

Rhetoric. — Hill's Principles of Rhetoric. — -Abbott's How to Write Clearly. — 
Addison, Goldsmith, Irving, Macaulay, Scott. — Burke's Speech on Conciliation 
-with America. — Exercises in Writing and Criticism. Twice a week. Mr. 
Ware. 

Six Themes. Mr. Perry. 

JONIOR YEAR. 

Six Themes. Professor Hill and Messrs. AVare and Perky. 
Four Forensics. Asst. Professor Palmer. 

SENIOR Y'EAR. 

Four Forensics. Professor Peabody. 

ELECTIVE COURSES. 

1. English Literature. — Chaucer. — Bacon. — • Milton. — Dryden. Three 
times a week. Professor Child. 

2. English Literature. — Shakspere. Three times a week. Professor Child. 
8. Anglo-Saxon. — Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader. Twice a week. Professor 

Child. 

4. Early English. — Miitzner's Altenglishe Sprachproben. Twice a week. 
Professor Child. 

5. Rhetoric and Themes (Advanced Course). Three times a week. Pro- 
fessor A. S. Hill. 

6. Oral Discussion. Once a fortnight (three hours') , to count as a oyie-hour 
course. Open to Seniors only. Professor A. S. Hill. 

7. Principles of Literary Criticism, in connection with English Literature of 
the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Once a week. Professor A. S. Hill. 

Students wishing to take Course 5 or 6 must consult the Instructor in 
advance. 

One hour of Course 5 can be used as an equivalent for Junior Them,es, in 
which case the course will count as two hours of elective work. 

Tot 1896-97.* 
Primarily for Undergraduates. 

A. Rhetoric and English Composition. — A. S. Hill, Principles of Rhetoric 
(revised and enlarged edition). — Lectures, recitations, written exer- 
cises, and conferences. I. Mon., Wed.., Fri., at 10 ; II. Mon., Wed., 
Fri.,at 11; III. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 12; IV. Tu., Th., Sat., at 
10; V. Tu., Th., Sat., at 11; VI. Tu., Th., Sat., at 12. Pro- 
fessors A. S. Hill and Briggs, and Messrs. Hurlbut, Copeland, 

CoBB, J. G. Hart, la Rose, and . (X.) 

Course A is prescribed for Freshmen and for first-year students in the 
Lawrence Scientific School. 

* A detailed account of the instruction offered by the Department of English will be found 
in the pamphlet of that department. The University issues each year special pamphlets of the 
courses of instruction offered by the various divisions and departments. These pamphlets may 
be had on application to the Correspondi7ig Secretary. 



60 APPENDIX. 

In the daily exercises the class will be divided into six sections as indi- 
cated above ; but at the Mid-year and Final Examinations the whole 
class will be examined together. Since these examinations are held on 
the same days with the examinations in Elective Group X, no member 
of English A is allowed to elect any course in Group X. 

Bhf. English Composition. — Twelve Themes. — Lectures and discussions of 
themes. Half-course. I. Tii., Th., at 12; II. Tu., Th., at 1.30; 
III. Tu., Th., at 2.30. Asst. Professor Wendell, and Messrs. 
Abbott and . 

Course B is prescribed for Sophomores who, having passed in Course A^ 
take neither Course 31 nor Course 22. It is open to those students only 
who have passed in Course A. . 

Chf. English Composition. — Forensics. — A brief based on a masterpiece of 
argumentative composition. Three forensics, preceded by briefs. 
Lectures, class-work, and conferences. Half-course. I. Tu., Th., at 
10; 11. Tu., Th., at 12 ; III. Tu., Th., at 1.30 ; IV. Tu., Th., at 
3.30, and other hours to be appointed hy the instructors. Asst. Pro- 
fessor Baker, and Messrs. T. Hall, Prescott, and . 

Course C is prescribed for Juniors who have passed in Course B, Course 
31, or Course 22, and who do not take Course 30. It is open to those 
students only M'ho have passed in Course B, Course 31, or Course 22. 

BChf. English Composition. — Written exercises and conferences.' Half- 
course. Wed., at 1.30. Messrs. Hurlbut, T. Hall, and J. G. Hart. 

(XIII.) 

This course, which corresponds in part to Course B and in part to Course 

C, is prescribed for students in the Lawrence Scientiiic School. It is 

open to those only who have passed in Course A. 

Course BC cannot be counted towards the degree of A.B., except with 

the permission of the Deans of the College and the Scientific School. 

31. English Composition. Tu., Th., at 2.30, and conferences at hours to be 
announced. Messrs. Gardiner and Duffield. (XI.) 

Course 31 is open to those who, having passed in Course A, prefer an 
elective course to Course B. It is counted as tlie equivalent of Course 
B and a half -course of elective study. 

Students who signify their intention at the beginning of the year may take 
Course 31 for the first half-year as the equivalent of Course B. 

22. English Composition. Tu., Th., at 1.30, and conferences at hours to be 
announced. Messrs. Gates, Abbott, and . (XIV.) 

Course 22 is similar to Course 31, except that it is open to those only who 
have attained Grade C in Course A. It is counted as the equivalent of 
Course B and a half-course of elective study. 

28 /i/. English Literature. — History and Development of English Literature 
in outline. Half-course. Tu., Th., at 10 {first half-year); Tu., 
{and at the pleasure of the instructor) Th., at 10 {second half-year). 
Professors Child, A. S. Hill, Briggs, Kittredge, Asst. Professor 
Wendell, and Messrs. J. G. Hart and la Rose. (VIII. ^ 

This course is for Freshmen and first-year Special Students only. It is 
open to those only who have passed the admission examination in English. 



APPENDIX. 61 

*30. Forensics and Debating. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 8-30. Asst. Professor 
Baker and Mr. Hayes. (VI-) 

Course 30 is counted as the equivalent of Course C and a half-course of 
elective study. 

*6 hf. Oral Discussion of Topics in History and Economics. Half-course. 

Til., 3.30-5.30. Professor Taussig, Asst. Professors Hart, 

E. CuMMiNGS, and Baker, and Mr. Hayes. (XIL) 
Course 6 is open to Seniors only. 

* 10 hf. Elocution. Half-course. I. Man., Fri., at 10 ; II. Mori., Fri., at 12. 
Mr. Hayes. 
Course 10 is open to those only who are approved by the instructor as 
having already attained some proficiency in Elocution. 

3^ hf. Anglo-Saxon. — Bright, Anglo-Saxon Reader. Half-course. Mon., Wed., 
Fri., at 1.30 {first half-year). Dr. Garrett. (XIII.) 

Course 3^ requires no previous knowledge of Anglo-Saxon. 

For Graduates and Undergraduates. 

1. English Literature. — Chaucer. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Professor 

KiTTREDGE and Dr. Garrett. (I.) 

2. English Literature. — Shakspere (six plays). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 10. 

■ Professors Child and Kittredge. (H-) 

Course 2 may be taken in two successive years. 

IV hf. English Literature. — Bacon. Half-course. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 10 
{first half -year). Dr. Garrett. (II-) 

11^ hf. English Literature. — Milton. Half-course. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 10 
{second half-year). Dr. Garrett. (II-) 

32' hf. English Literature of the Elizabethan Period. Erom Tottell's Miscellany 
to the Death of Spenser (1557-1599). Half-course. Tu., Th., at 12 
{first half-year). Mr. Gardiner and an assistant. (X.) 

32^ hf. English Literature. — From the Death of Spenser to the Closing of the 
Theatres (1599-1642). Half -course. Tu., Th., at 12 {second half- 
year'). Asst. Professor Baker and an assistant. (-^•) 

[15^ hf. English Literature. — From the Closing of the Theatres to the Death 
of Dryden (1(342-1700). Half-course.^ 
Omitted in 1896-97 ; to be given in 1897-98. 

7' hf. English Literature of the Period of Queen Anne. From the Death of 
Dryden to the Death of Pope (1700-1744). Half-course. Mon., Fri., 
at 2.30 {first hcdfyear'). Mr. Hurlbut and an assistant. (Y-) 

7- hf. English Literature. — From the Death of Pope to the publication of the 
Lyrical Ballads (1744-1798). Half-course. Mon., Fri., at 2.30 
{second half year) . Mr. Copeland and an assistant. (V.) 

[8' ///. English Literature. — From the publication of the Lyrical Ballads to the 
Death of Scott (1798-1832). Half-course. Tu., Th., at 11 {first 
half-year). Professor A. S. Hill and an assistant.] (IX.) 

Omitted in 1896-97 ; to be given in 1897-98. 

* A starred (*) course caiiuot be taken without the previous consent of the instructor. 



62 APPENDIX. 

[8*^ hf. English Literature. — From the Death of Scott to the Death of Tennyson 

(1832-1892). Half-course. Tu., Th., at 11 {second half-year). 
Mr. Gates and an assistant.] (IX.) 

Omitted in 1896-97 ; to be given in 1897-98. 

12. English Composition. Tu., Th., at 2.30. Asst. Professor Wendell and 
Mr. CoRBiN. (XI.) 

Course 12 is open to those only who have attained Grade Cin Course B 
or in Course 22 or in Course 31 or in Course BC. With the consent 
of the instructors, it may be taken as a half-course for the first half- 
year. 

[*18 hf. Argumentative Composition. — Eight forensics preceded by briefs. — 
Lectures and conferences. Half-course. Fri., at 9. Asst. Professor 
Baker.] (I.) 

Omitted in 1896-97 ; to be given in 1897-98. 

Course 18 is open to those only who have passed with credit in Course C. 

Primarily for Graduates. 

19* hf. Historical English Grammar. Half-course. Three times a week {second 
half-year). Professor Kittredge. 

16 hf. History and Principles of English Versification. Half-course. Fri., at 
11. Mr. Gates. (III.) 

Z^ hf. Anglo-Saxon. — Beowulf. — Half-course. 3Ion., Wed., Fri., at 11 
{second half-year). Professor Kittredge. (Ill-) 

[25* A/. Anglo-Saxon. — Csedmon. — Cynewulf. Half-course. Three times a 
week {second half-year). Professor Kittredge.] 
Omitted in 1896-97 ; to be given in 1897-98. 

i. Early English. — English Literature from 1200 to 1450. — Miitzner, AU- 
englische Sprachproben. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Professor Child 
and Dr. Garrett. (HI-) 

Course 4 is open to those only who are acquainted with Anglo-Saxon. 

21* hf. Early English. — The Metrical Romances. — Lectures and theses. 

Half-course. Tu.., 12-1, Th., 11-1, {second half-year). Professor 

Kittredge. (X.) 

Course 21 is open to those only who are acquainted with Early English 

and Old Erench. 

[26* hf. Langland and Gower. Half-course. Three times a week {second half- 
year). Dr. Garrett.] 
Omitted in 1896-97 ; to be given in 1897-98. 

17' hf. English Literature of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries in relation 
to Italian and Spanish Literature of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth 
Centuries. Half-course. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10 {first half-year). 
Mr. Fletcher. (VIII.) 

*27 ^ hf. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Half-course. Tu., Th., 
Sat., at 10 {first half-year). Professor Child. (VIII.) 

This course is for Graduates only. 

13 hf. Literary Criticism in England since the Sixteenth Century. Half-course. 
Mon., at 3.30. Mr. Gates. (VI.) 



•nC. 



%> 



APPENDIX. 63 

14 hf, English Literature. — The Drama from the Miracle Plays to the Closing 
of the Theatres. Half-course. Wed., at 11. Asst. Professor 
Wendell. (Ill-) 

Course 14 is open to those only who take or have taken Course 2. 

'd^ hf. English Literature. — Spenser. Half-course. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10 
{second half-year). Mr. Fletcher. (VIII.) 

23 hf. English Literature. — The works of Shakspere. Half-course. Wed., at 
2.30. Asst. Professor Baker. (V.) 

Course 23 is open to those only who have taken English 2. 

29 hf. The English Novel from Richardson to George Eliot. Half-course. 
Wed., at 10. Professor A. S. Hill. (II.) 

24' hf. The Poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley, and 
Keats. Half-course. Tu., Th., at 11 (first half-year). Professor 
A. S. Hill. (IX.) 

*5. English Composition (advanced course). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 12. Pro- 
fessor A. S. Hill. (IV.) 
With the consent of the instructor. Course 5 may be taken in two 

successive years. 
With the consent of the instructor. Course 5 may be taken as a half- 
course during the first half-year. 

Courses of Research. 

20. During the year 1896-97 the instructors in English will hold themselves 
ready to assist and advise competent graduates who may xjropose plans 
of special study which shall meet the approval of the Department. 

20a. English Literature in its relation to German Literature, from 1790 to 1830. 
Wed., at 4.30. Mr. Gates. 

[205. English Literature in its relation to Italian Literature in the Sixteenth 
Century. Mr. Fletcher.] 
Omitted in 1896-97; to be given in 1897-98. 




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